US President Donald Trump has been named the world's most oppressive leader towards press freedom by a top journalism group.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said its awards were designed to recognise "world leaders who have gone out of their way to attack the press and undermine the norms that support freedom of the media".

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According to the CPJ, Trump's apparent disregard for the first amendment is his most obvious and repeated offence, to the point where foreign countries have adopted Trump's "fake news" refrain to describe unflattering coverage.

The organisation said on Monday (8 January) the US President claimed the top prize for "overall achievement in undermining global press freedom" and that while Russia and China exerted a stronger grip on their national media, Trump was the overall winner.

The US President was joined by his Russian and Turkish counterparts, Vladimir Putin and Tayyip Erdoğan, as one of the world leaders to "have gone above and beyond to silence critical voices and weaken democracy".

Erdogan pipped Trump to the post in "Most Thin-Skinned" category and the CPJ highlighted the latter's attacks of the media were among the most frequent in the free world, indicating he had repeatedly threatened to revoke broadcast licences and launch lawsuits in response to criticism.

Last week, the US President said he would announce the "most dishonest and corrupt media in the world" on 17 January in what he billed as the "Fake News Awards".

In the last week, Trump has focused his attacks on journalist Michael Wolff, whose new book Fire and Fury has raised question marks over the Trump presidency.

In the explosive White House expose that has the political world riveted, Steve Bannon, Trump's ex-strategist, is portrayed as being concerned about Trump's mental capacity following his incendiary comments after the racial violence in Charlottesville in August in which he blamed both neo-Nazis and protesters.

Wolff also said in an interview he had the "indelible impression" that Trump's staff "came to believe he was incapable of functioning in his job".

In his book, he wrote that during the president's recent stay in Florida at Mar-a-Lago "a heavily made-up Trump failed to recognise a succession of old friends".

Trump's legal team has tried to block publication of the book although neither Wolff nor his publishers, Henry Holt and Co, responded to demands to "immediately cease and desist from any further publication, release or dissemination" of the book which will be released early and has already rocketed to the top of Amazon's charts.

In response to the book, Trump's adviser Stephen Miller appeared on CNN on Sunday (7 January), even though the US President has repeatedly criticised the broadcaster.

Miller's appearance on the State of the Union, however, provided further embarrassment for the White House, after host Jake Tapper cut short the interview and Miller had to be escorted off stage.

"I think I have wasted enough of my viewers' time," Tapper told Miller.

Predictably, however, Trump saw the interview differently and claimed on Twitter that the CNN broadcaster "got destroyed" by his aide.

Donald Trump