Makes me wonder why the establishment media didn't take a real stand when Obama went after them, when they were spied upon, subpoenaed, and such. Glenn Greenwald can't go anywhere without govt thugs shaking him down, taking his electronics and going through his stuff, often delaying and detaining him for extended periods at airports and such.

Yet, mainstream mouthpieces were largely silent.

Go back to the financial crisis, where the MSM covered the party line 24/7, working to convince the public that disaster would befall the world if we didn't bail out the bad actors. Barely a shred of objectivity or alternative voice could be heard from most quarters, though they did exist. But hey, the constant fear mongering by Geithner, Bernanke, Paulson et al, to get the criminal enterprises they hailed from bailed out got ratings.

Or the massive silence during the Iraq war period. How many years was it after 9/11 before the media found a spine again? Or what about the media's own complicity in pushing through the tenets of the internal security state? I wonder how many yokels had to be interviewed to find some that would obligingly say something like "Oh, we are so scared of terrorism. Oh my gawd, they need to do something, it could happen anywhere." So an illusion of fear was created. As if Al Qaeda was going to blow up the local VFW Hall during Wednesday night fucking bingo. Instead of voices of reason, it was 24/7 mindless fear mongering, in service to those who wished to spend uncounted billions constructing elaborate surveillance and policing apparatus aimed at those very yokels, and accumulating unchecked and unaccountable political power within the Federal bureaucracy.

Going back to the 90's, I still recall the turn the media made. It was very noticeable, even though I was pretty young. Particularly noticeable was the media had started fear mongering conservatives, and pillorying normal people who somehow got caught in the crosshairs. MSM hatred of gun rights was particularly vivid, which, more than anything, led to both the market for, and creation of Faux News.

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What happened in Turkey is instructive. But if we want to avoid that, it is imperative that people in media realize - and internalize - that this didn't happen overnight, and it wasn't some outside force that brought it on. They have, as an industry, done it to themselves.

Of course I say that in overly broad terms - despite editorial and corporate failures, there have still been good journalists, good stories, and good reporting. It still happens, and happens often.

But what the C-suite brass chooses to hammer home, and the messages and narratives they choose to ram down everyone's throat matter. Hopefully they have learned, but it seems that they haven't.

For who could be free when every other man's humour might domineer over him? - John Locke (2nd Treatise, sect 57)