Washington, Jan 18 (IANS): US President Donald Trump has unveiled the winners of his so-called "Fake News Awards" in a gimmick to escalate his attacks on major media outlets, with CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post leading the list.

Trump sent out a tweet on Wednesday night with a link to the awards on the Republican Party website. The winners of the spoof awards also included ABC News, TIME and Newsweek.

The awards listed New York Times columnist Paul Krugman as the top winner. "Krugman claimed on the day of President Trump's historic, landslide victory that the economy would never recover," according to the GOP-hosted website.

Krugman's listing was contrasted with a headline that showed the Dow hitting a record high.

"2017 was a year of unrelenting bias, unfair news coverage, and even downright fake news. Studies have shown that over 90 per cent of the media's coverage of President Trump is negative," according to the GOP-hosted website.

The awards were unavailable immediately following Trump's tweet announcing them, from a traffic overload. "The site is temporarily offline," it read for nearly an hour after Trump sent out a tweet to the site.

CNN was blasted for "falsely" reporting that candidate Trump and his son Trump Jr had access to hacked documents from WikiLeaks. CNN corrected that report in December.

Other entries included TIME's mistaken report about Martin Luther King Jr.'s bust being removed from the Oval Office, CNN's incorrect reporting on Trump "defiantly overfeeding fish during a visit with the Japanese Prime Minister" and about former White House communications director "Anthony Scaramucci's meeting with a Russian."

Trump gave CNN 4 of his 11 "accolades" -- more than any other outlet.

The list also mentioned the Washington Post for reporting that "the President's massive sold-out rally in Pensacola, Florida, was empty".

"Dishonest reporter showed picture of empty arena HOURS before crowd started pouring in. That reporter apologized, saying he was confused by another user's shared images," the GOP website stated.

The list also stated an error by ABC News' veteran reporter Brian Ross, who was suspended and then reassigned for an erroneous report on Trump and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

The awards also blamed Newsweek for reporting that Polish First Lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda did not shake the US President's hand. A video that appeared to capture the missed handshake went viral on social media at the time.

According to the GOP website, the New York Times "falsely claimed on the front page that the Trump administration had hidden a climate report". The report was publicly available at the time and the paper was forced to issue a correction, it said.

Finally, the "Fake News Awards" noted that "Russian collusion was perhaps the greatest hoax perpetrated on the American people. THERE IS NO COLLUSION!"

The page also listed several accomplishments of the President.