Throughout the past half century more than sixty Turkish journalists have been assassinated. Among some of the prominent names in recent times are Abdi ?pekçi (d. 1979), Musa Anter (d. 1992), U?ur Mumcu (d. 1993), Ahmet Taner K??lal? (d. 1999), and Hrant Dink (d. 2007). This paper deals with the symbolic significances given to particular assassinated journalists in today’s Turkey, and explores how this significance is constructed and maintained. The aim is to investigate what evoking particular journalists, and giving them status as icons of journalism tell about notions of journalism and of the public sphere among particular socio-political actors in Turkey. The paper in particular focuses on lawyer turned journalist U?ur Mumcu (1942-1993), who alongside Abdi ?pekçi (1929-1979) is most often mentioned as one of the two most significant journalists in relation to the development of journalism in Turkey. More specifically, Mumcu is seen as a prime exponent of so-called investigative journalism in Turkey. Mumcu was a self-declared Ataturkist, and thus also anti-imperialist and a fierce defender of laicism. His writings, in the form of almost thirty books and innumerous columns and articles in among other Cumhuriyet, cover a range of themes. But a couple of the most prominent focal points in his writings are the so-called deep state in Turkey - including possible mafia-state relations and possible PKK-Turkish armed forces relations - and Islamism. With regard to the latter Mumcu among other investigated Hezbollah networks in Turkey. Those were until recently believed to be behind the car bomb that killed him. Through a focus on selected writings of Mumcu as well as data from ethnographic fieldwork on the question of Mumcu and other assassinated journalists in present-day Turkey, the paper explores features of the political culture in Turkey as articulated through Mumcu’s writings as well as the current meanings constructed around Mumcu through which particular ideologically vested actors maintain his symbolic significance as part of an on-going political power struggle in Turkey.