The running war of words between the White House and the mainstream media is bad news for the fight against fake new. It will lead to an even more divided America and will have consequences for the rest of the world.

President Donald Trump wasted no time declaring war on his first day in the White House. It wasn’t against Islamic State, not yet at least. Not China or Mexico. Not even the Democratic Party. The war he started immediately was with the American media.

The first salvo was fired over what he alleged as their false reporting of the size of the crowd at his inauguration. Newspapers and television networks said it was much smaller than President Obama’s and showed pictures of the two ceremonies. The new president fired back accusing them of producing fake news. Not mincing his words, he declared: “I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings on earth.”

… Han Fook Kwang is Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.