The Boston Globe’s fake front page reporting dire news from a future Donald Trump presidency has dragged the newspaper to the mudslinging level of 2016’s candidates — but could do more to help Trump than hurt him, media experts say.

Kevin Z. Smith, former National Ethics Committee chairman for the Society of Professional Journalists, called the put-on “an unfortunate example of a reputable newspaper that, in this particular instance, seems to have taken leave of its position,” allowing itself “to devolve into that same kind of behavior (as) the candidates.”

“I think they missed the mark here a little bit by trying to become another genre, and I think that it doesn’t look good on their reputation,” Smith said.

The faux front page — dated “April 9, 2017” and appearing in place of the Sunday paper’s usual Ideas section front — screamed: “DEPORTATIONS TO BEGIN,” and featured parody stories about stock market disasters and soldiers refusing to kill ISIS family members. A disclaimer at the bottom of the page pointed readers to an editorial entitled “GOP Must Stop Trump.”

The Republican front-runner yesterday slammed the paper as “stupid” and “worthless” during a stump speech in Rochester, N.Y.

“The whole front page is a make-believe story, which is really no different from the whole paper,” Trump said to cheers.

In a statement, the Globe stressed the articles were produced by the editorial board, not the news staff, but stood by the fake news as its vision of what a Trump future holds.

“We pushed it forward to examine how his statements and positions might play out as public policy,” reads the statement by Ideas editor Katie Kingsbury. “We believe this page puts a spotlight on the policy implications for Americans.”

Thomas Whalen, a Boston University social science professor, said the section plays to Trump’s rallying cry of standing up to elites desperate to silence him, as he reels from a surprise loss to rival Ted Cruz in Wisconsin last week.

“This is going to reinforce his political narrative at a critical time,” Whalen said. “This is a great daily metropolitan newspaper, it’s not the Onion or Mad Magazine or the old National Lampoon. This is beyond the pale … shame on the Globe.”

But Kelly McBride of the the Poynter Institute called it “pretty clever” at a time editorial boards struggle to be parts of the national conversation. “It got a lot of attention and it made a point,” she said.