Advertisement

World’s top jailer of journalists praises Trump for putting a reporter ‘in his place’

Turkey’s Erdogan was a fan of Trump’s hostile press conference.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses village administrators in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017. CREDIT: Murat Cetinmuhurdar, Presidential Press Service, Pool photo via AP
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses village administrators in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017. CREDIT: Murat Cetinmuhurdar, Presidential Press Service, Pool photo via AP

President-elect Donald Trump held a press conference on Wednesday that was widely compared to addresses delivered by autocratic rulers due to his refusal to answer questions from news outlets he didn’t like.

Trump’s behavior at the presser — which included calling CNN “fake news” and BuzzFeed a “pathetic pile of garbage” — drew praise from renowned journalist jailer, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Speaking to local administrators in the Turkish capital of Ankara, Erdogan said that when Trump shouted down CNN’s Jim Acosta, he had put the reporter “in his place.”

Erdogan’s enthusiasm for cracking down on a free press has made Turkey into the world’s leader in jailing the media, with 81 journalists currently behind bars. The world’s second largest jailer is China with 38.

If there’s any silver lining, it may be that Turkey’s opinion of the U.S. is slowly rising. The Turks are currently upset that the U.S. won’t hand over a Pennsylvania-based Turkish cleric that it claims runs a shadow state; Ankara is also unhappy with the U.S. policy in Syria that provides support to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Trump’s Secretary of State nominee, Rex Tillerson, recently suggested his strategy to defeat ISIS would be to provide additional support for Kurdish units in Syria — something Turkey adamantly opposes.

In Russia, where journalists are used to covering autocratic press conferences, Trump’s presser was met with mockery.

“Congratulations, US media! You’ve just covered your first press conference of an authoritarian leader with a massive ego and a deep disdain for your trade and everything you hold dear,” Russian journalist Alexey Kovalev wrote on Medium.

Advertisement

In Russia, journalists aren’t regularly jailed, but outlets can have their editors easily replaced by more obedient figures — or murdered. Since Putin came to power for the first time in 2000, around 35 journalists have been killed in Russia.

As if Erdogan and Putin aren’t good enough company, Trump also drew praise from former New York City Mayor and Trump’s cybersecurity czar Rudy Giuliani.

“It is refreshing and it is very good for our democracy that we have a president that is trying to get us back to a free press,” Giuliani said on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News on Thursday.