Did you know that CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour would be arrested if she set foot on Turkish soil? For the first time in Turkey, a newspaper editor has made an official complaint about a foreign media correspondent. The editor’s complaint states, “Ms. Amanpour has abused the powers of CNN while reporting about the Gezi protests. She caused loss of life and property by disseminating false news and provoking people.” As the Gezi protests and their aftershocks stretch to fill a month's time, we must ask: What is the Turkish government’s biggest loss? 

After days of on-location observing, I have come to the conclusion that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s biggest loss is the erosion of the Justice and Development Party (AKP)’s intellectual support base. This loss curtails Erdogan’s ability to control Turkish public opinion significantly because the average Turk has lost his trust of the mainstream media, and the internal rifts within pro-AKP media establishment are taking their toll. Let’s start with the second piece of the puzzle.

Al-Monitor contributors explained the notorious "penguin incident" (when police attempted to evacuate Gezi Park on May 31 and hundreds of protesters poured into Taksim, none of the major TV channels reported it, one opting for a nature show about penguins) to demonstrate how mainstream media now walks the government line. Either run by friends of the AKP or manipulated through different means ranging from incentives to outright crude pressure, media outlets that are functioning today are only semi-independent when it comes to political news. Over the years, the AKP has structured a professional army-like media apparatus, where the information flow is under military-level control. It works efficiently in disseminating not only the news to be reported, but how it is to be framed. The pro-AKP media apparatus has so far functioned rather well in molding public opinion to its advantage.

Indeed, several respectable pundits have lost significant professional credibility. Only those with direct personal affiliation to the AKP-sponsored institutions continued to convey Erdogan’s rhetoric during the protests. Everyone else was either quiet or in support of the protests. This silence angered all Turks, especially several AKP elites. Indeed, one of those pundits, Jalal Kazdagli, penned a searing piece asking, “What good is a Turkish media that fails to publish the headline 'Deep Provocation' on the first day of the protests?” The allusion, of course, is to the “deep state” charges against government security services that operate clandestinely to orchestrate coups or to coerce the government.