Yeah I agree with most of what you said. But when it comes to TV channels in Turkey they are all pro-gov. All are owned or get paid by Erdoğan and his allies. Only Halk TV and Tele1 aren't linked to the government, and to be honest that's just sad. Everyday millions of Turks are spoonfed propaganda by the pro-government channels. I remember when the last elections happened they wouldn't show the opposition speeches and instead just show AKP speeches along with Erdoğan saying "eyy Amerika".
I don't really know or care which media outlet is owned by who, I only check the rhetoric and the contents themselves. Because the sponsor/owners of news outlets can surprise you with the content they provide. However from what I know most media outlets out there are anti-government as opposed to pro-government. I have witnessed many times that some people think that a newspaper is pro-government while other people think that the very same newspaper is anti-government. It all has to do with perspective and what information they are exposed to.
I know that Tele1 is pretty strongly anti-government and don't really take what they say at face value due to them taking having such strong biases that stems from their political alliances. Halk TV is CHP's channel so it is expected that they will parrot CHP's policy. It doesn't really matter too much by whom it is owned as I believe it is wrong to judge based on who they are owned by, opinions should be formed on their content. And when judging the content, it needs to be judged article by article, report by report in order to identify their policy. Only after constantly and systematically seeing the same type of rhetoric/reporting one can judge by saying that they are systematically trying to mislead. But even then, they might change policy and start reporting differently or even objectively. That is why the whole 'most channels are owned by this or that' has more to do with trying to discredit their (political) competitors and what they want people to believe rather then what is actually going on (manufacturing consent).
There was this pro-government channel on Turkish satellite called 'Kanal A' (not to be confused with ATV or A Haber). I occasionally watched this channel, which was a news channel. They were constantly bashing the opposition, but I kept giving them a chance in order to see if it was systematic. I once was zapping back and forth on the channel and this one time there was this guy just bashing CHP for 1 hour straight. I deleted the channel afterwards as I believe these types of channels don't do our country any favors and it didn't deserve my attention. The guy bashing CHP for one hour straight was Rahmi Turan, I didn't know him by name back then but I recognized his face when he surfaced during the whole 'saray'a giden CHP'li' ordeal.
I am also wary of those reporters that say 'saray' instead of Cumhurbaskanligi or Bestepe. The reason they say 'saray' is to imply corruption. This is a propaganda technique and it subtly tries to persuade it's listeners and plays on the subconscious mind. I am sure we can catch way more manipulation techniques like this if we were to pay more attention on the rhetoric they use. Another obvious one is if they use 'they' with the implication of trying to differentiate 'them' from 'us'. Example: 'They' are corrupt (implies that 'we' are virtuous). This sentence is basically demonizing their political opponents, it differentiates between 'us' and 'them', which causes polarization amongst us.
These types of propaganda policies aren't able to attract new voters for their political party, but it does consolidate its current constituents. Which makes constituants more fanatical, which reflects as polarization in the country. In other words, those that have a favorable view for the political party will be even more favorable. But those that don't have a favorable view will only distance themselves more. This type of reporting has a cause and effect relationship, if they demonize the other side, the other side will go on the defensive and even demonize back. Eventually diminishing the level of politics and media to junk level.
I used to be caught up in this as well, so much so that I thought that 80% of the people in Turkey were 'vatan haini' because they didn't vote for the party I rooted for at the time. Thankfully I recognized that that wasn't healthy or rational and I grew out of that way of thinking. My thought process was pretty extreme as I look back, 'vatan haini' is pretty extreme compared to accusing those people as 'aptal' or dumb or something.
