Donald Trump tweets to deny watching 8 hours of TV a day, amid major security operation after suspected New York bomb attack

The article that upset Mr Trump suggested that he was obsessed with his own headlines to the detriment of peace

Donald Trump has tweeted about his TV viewing habits amid a major incident in New York.

As police dealt with an unfolding situation in the city, Mr Trump looked to correct a report into the amount of television news he watches.

"Another false story, this time in the Failing @nytimes, that I watch 4-8 hours of television a day - Wrong!" he posted. "Also, I seldom, if ever, watch CNN or MSNBC, both of which I consider Fake News. I never watch Don Lemon, who I once called the 'dumbest man on television!' Bad Reporting."

A White House representative had said earlier that Mr Trump had been briefed on the situation in New York. "@POTUS has been briefed on the explosion in New York City," press secretary Sarah Sanders posted on her Twitter account.

At the time of publication, Mr Trump had not commented on the unfolding suspected terror incident in his hometown and had only sent that one post directed at the New York Times on the morning of the bomb attack. It was a reference to a piece that claimed Mr Trump spent at least four hours a day watching TV – and often twice that.

It also suggested that Mr Trump loved to be written about by those newspapers and was obsessed with the attention they gave him, alongside other revelations including his drinking 12 cans of Diet Coke each day.

"To an extent that would stun outsiders, Mr. Trump, the most talked-about human on the planet, is still delighted when he sees his name in the headlines," the paper claimed. "And he is on a perpetual quest to see it there. One former top adviser said Mr. Trump grew uncomfortable after two or three days of peace and could not handle watching the news without seeing himself on it."

It is not the first time that the President has tweeted about a dispute with the paper amid a major incident. During the very recent diplomatic fallout over Mr Trump's decision to retweet Islamophobic videos from extremist group Britain First, he tweeted only that he believes New York Times reporters were breaking the paper's social media policy.