US President Donald Trump lashed out at the media early on Sunday (10 December) after a series of reporting errors, calling them a "stain on America". Twitter, on the other hand, hit back at Trump saying his frequent attacks on the free press are the "real stain" on humanity.

"Very little discussion of all the purposely false and defamatory stories put out this week by the Fake News Media," Trump tweeted. "They are out of control - correct reporting means nothing to them. Major lies written, then forced to be withdrawn after they are exposed...a stain on America!"

Trump has long criticised mainstream news outlets as "fake news media" over their coverage of him and his administration.

Last week, a number of journalists and media outlets including CNN and ABC were slammed by the president and his supporters over reporting errors that made waves on social media, and were widely covered by the media. The slew of errors also fuelled claims by the president and his supporters over "fake news" by news outlets.

ABC News' Brian Ross reported that Trump had directed his former national security adviser, who was recently charged in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe, to make contact with Russian officials during the campaign. However, ABC later retracted the report and clarified that Flynn was directed to contact Russia after Trump was elected.

The error immediately came under fire while Ross, whom Trump called a "fraudster", was suspended over the report.

CNN was also forced to issue a correction regarding an erroneous exclusive that Donald Trump Jr received an advance email from WikiLeaks regarding a trove of stolen documents from the DNC that it planned to release during the campaign. However, the email was actually sent to Trump's son a day after the embarrassing documents were leaked to the general public.

Trump also took aim at Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel and demanded that he apologise for tweeting a "phony photo" of an empty arena in Florida hours before the rally began and the president arrived.

Weigel later apologised for the photo and admitted that he "got it wrong." Trump has since called on the Post to fire Weigel.

Twitter, however, slammed the president over his latest attacks on the press as "hypocritical" in light of his history of making questionable statements and claims.

"The liar of all liars complaining about an honest mistake," one person tweeted. Another added: "You're the stain pal, an orange skid mark on history."

"Trump is a clown. He has no respect for the American people or our Constitution," another person wrote. "He mocks our democracy & 241 years of civility in our executive branch. His presidency will go into the history books as the greatest stain on our democratic experiment since slavery. I am ashamed."

"You are really deflecting," one person mused. "Something interesting must be coming."

donald trump
US President Donald Trump took aim at the media after a series of reporting errors and he got furiously slammed in return REUTERS/Carlo Allegri