By AMANDA PRATS

Fox News anchor Shepard Smith surprised many with a biting criticism of President Donald Trump on his show Thursday. Smith’s comments were in response to the president’s continued criticism of the news media, most recently during his Thursday press conference, which Smith described as “absolutely crazy.”

During the press conference, President Trump berated CNN’s Jim Acosta, averting his question and going on an extensive, dizzying rant about the news media.

Smith was critical of the president’s response to the question, defending Acosta and the news media as a whole.

“We’re not fools for asking the questions and we demand to know the answer to this question. You owe this to the American people,” Smith said on his show, pressing the president to take reporters’ questions seriously.

“We have a right to know. You call us fake news and put us down like children for asking these questions on behalf of the American people,” Smith said, referring to the president’s habit of referring to widely regarded organizations as “fake news.”

Smith’s response is only the latest in the saga of conflict between the president and the news media. Throughout his campaign, President Trump has repeatedly alleged that a plethora of news outlets are dishonest, ineffective or failing. The only program spared from the criticism seems to be the morning show “Fox & Friends,” for which the president has previously expressed his praise, and which he specifically mentioned during the press conference for being “very honorable people.”

Despite the president’s many attempts to discredit CNN, the news organization has not suffered, according to CNN President Jeff Zucker. In a state-of-the-company luncheon on Thursday, Zucker and other top executives from CNN and Turner announced that ratings are high, no advertisers have pulled out, and there has been no harm to the CNN brand.

By AMANDA PRATS

In response to the White House’s list of 78 terror attacks that President Trump said were unreported by the news media, journalists have taken a direct approach in shutting down Trump’s claims.

The list included events that were reported nearly ad nauseam, including even the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting and the November 2015 Paris attacks. These events and many of the others listed dominated news coverage for weeks, filling hours of air time and countless articles in print and online.

The list seems to have been primarily released in an attempt to support Trump’s repeated assertion that the media is dishonest and ineffective; the focus on terrorist attacks that were apparently influenced by radical Islam seems to be an effort to validate Trump’s recent policies regarding Muslim-majority countries.

In response to the list, journalists from news organizations across the nation and abroad have chimed in. CNN’s Anderson Cooper clarified on air that many of the attacks mentioned in the list he personally reported on, playing clips of him reporting from San Bernadino, Orlando and Paris, among many more.

On screen, the lower third read “WH releases list of undercovered attacks,” and in parenthesis, “(We covered many).” The New York Times published the list from the White House along with links to its own articles on nearly each attack.

Business Insider Australia reported on the five Australian incidents mentioned on the list, one of which was the fatal stabbing of two Australian backpackers. The incident was never determined by Australian police to be related to terrorism.

The family of one of the deceased reacted to the list with an open letter to Trump on Facebook, in which she shared that she began blogging to dispel what she called the myth that Islamic fundamentalism was the driving factor behind her daughter’s death.

The victim’s mother ended the post by denouncing Trump’s actions and framing of the attacks, writing “This vilification of whole nation states and their people based on religion is a terrifying reminder of the horror that can ensue when we allow ourselves to be led by ignorant people into darkness and hatred.”