[soundwave106]

Donald Trump reminds me more of Silvio Berlusconi than Erdogan, personally.

Berlusconi was nowhere near Erdogan's style of strongman politics, but unfortunately, during his term, Berlusconi did stifle press freedom somewhat in Italy... primarily via questionable libel lawsuits against any critical outlet if I recall.

It's easy for me to see Donald Trump following a similar pattern, of attempting to sue any critical outlet into silence.

[6stringmerc]

Absolutely; he's stated as much flat out. "I want to make it easier to sue the press." As Trump so clearly shows, it's very easy to sue somebody in the US (or use it as an empty threat) - there's lots of avenues for recourse.

Unfortunately for Trump, the courts have consistently sided with the press when they report accurate and factual statements, even if they may be unflattering. This doesn't seem to register with Trump. If asked to define what "treating me fairly" actually, genuinely means, I'm pretty sure he couldn't.

[gukov]

So let him sue and let the courts deal with it.

Do you think the media needs to be a little more accountable or the hysteria is good?

[soundwave106]

Accountability for accuracy is desirable. But with strongmen leaders, "accountability in media" tends to be "toe the party line", regardless of accuracy.

Practically I don't think Trump would get very far with any sort of libel lawsuits. Even in Italy, Berlusconi's "sue into silence" strategy was not 100% effective -- and Berlusconi is a much more dominant player in comparative national medias than Trump is.

Even so, my gut feeling is that Trump would be perfectly okay with a Putin / Erdogan style strongman media takeover if he could get away with it.

[6stringmerc]

To answer your question, yes, I do think the media needs to be a little more accountable, and to clarify, I fully believe it should be to a person or entity of character and with a steadfast reaspect for truth - qualities of which Donald Trump's behavior and statements certainly do not reflect.