fines. These media group owners face similar threats to their other businesses. An increasing number of columnists have been fired for criticizing the AKP leadership. Leaked telephone calls between high ranking AKP officials and businessmen indicate that government officials collected money from businessmen in order to create a "pool media" that will support AKP government at any cost. Arbitrary tax penalties are assessed to force newspapers into bankruptcy—after which they emerge, owned by friends of the president. According to a recent investigation by Bloomberg, Erdogan forced a sale of the once independent daily Sabah to a consortium of businessmen led by his son-in-law. The state-run Anadolu Agency and the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation have also been criticized by media outlets and opposition parties, for acting more and more like a mouthpiece for the ruling AKP, a stance in stark violation of their requirement as public institutions to report and serve the public in an objective way. In the aftermath of the 2016 coup attempt, all media outlets considered to have been linked to the Gülen movement were shut down by the Turkish government. These include the newspapers Zaman (formerly the highest-circulation paper in Turkey) and Taraf, Cihan News Agency, Samanyolu TV and numerous others. Later in the same year, some pro-Kurdish media outlets, such as IMC TV, were also shut down for allegedly supporting the PKK. Former publications In the post-Tanzimat period French became a common language among educated people, even though no ethnic group in the empire natively spoke French. Johann Strauss, author of "Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire," wrote that "In a way reminiscent of English in the contemporary world, French was almost omnipresent in the Ottoman lands." Strauss also stated that French was "a sort of semi-official language", which "to some extent" had "replaced Turkish as an 'official' language for non-Muslims". Therefore, late empire had multiple French-language publications, and several continued to operate when the Republic of Turkey was declared in 1923. However French-language publications began to close in the 1930s. From 1923 onwards: İctihâd - Idjtihad. Türkçe ve Fransızca, ilmi, edebi, iktisadi T. C. İzmir Ticaret ve Sanayi Odası Mecmuası - République de Turque Bulletin de la Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie de Smyrne Revue commerciale du Levant (Constantinople, with the entire city named Istanbul in Turkish in 1923 and renamed Istanbul in English circa 1930) - of the French chamber of