【2016 Archives】

President-elect Donald Trump016 Archivesdeveloping a habit of making friends with enemies of journalism.

His flirtation with Russian President Putin -- a man whose immense power endangers the lives of journalists willing to be critical of him -- is well known. But after Trump's news conference on Wednesday, another press-hating leader voiced his admiration.

During a news conference Thursday -- one day after Trump's own -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reportedly commended his American counterpart for putting CNN's Jim Acosta "in his place."

He had been commenting on the response of media outlets to protests and terror events in Turkey, and likened it to the current fake news problem, Daily Sabahreports.

Trump got into a shouting match with Acosta during the news conference on Wednesday, refusing to allow Acosta to ask a question and instead attacking CNN. He ended the spat with the baseless accusation that CNN is "fake news."

Trump was angered by a CNN story published the night before that outlined how intelligence officials had shown Trump documents that detailed how Russian officials might try to "compromise him."

Erdoğan is a well known enemy of the press. After a coup attempt in July, the Turkish government closed 160 media outlets, according to Human Rights Watch. By the middle of November, the number of jailed journalists had shot up to 144, "making Turkey once again a world leader in jailing journalists."

As Trevor Noah said Wednesday night, assigning the "fake news" label to a media outlet is the first step in the "authoritarian tango."

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