Turkey: How media and political bosses work together
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FNOTW: Turkey: How media and political bosses work together
The blind coverage of the mainstream media in Turkey has become an obvious issue, especially through and after the mass demonstrations in Turkey during last month. While the gas was teared excessively by the happy police in the streets, TV channels were broadcasting the non-relevant news or talk shows, regarless of the surrounding battles nearby. People in the world might be aware of this issue. However, we might not know it well - how goverment can censor hot news on the media. Yavuz Baydar has revealed the true stories in his article for the New York Times, "In Turkey, media bosses are undermining democracy".
Yavuz Baydar was the formal readers' editor of the daily newspaper Sabah. He was fired after two of his columns were rejected for publication. One column criticised the government's handling of the Gezi Park protest and the other concerned how the relationship between an editor-in-chief and the readers' editor should work, as the Sabah's editor-in-chief had his own column attacking Baydar for his standpoint against the government on the Gezi protests. Yavuz Baydar is also a columnist for the English-language newspaper Today’s Zaman.
As I have read about the blind coverage of the media in Turkey from many brave journalists, my curiosity of the real journalistic performance in Turkey arises. Then I got the detalied answer from Yavuz Baydar's article on the New York Times "In Turkey, Media Bosses Are Undermining Democracy"
Baydar wrote: "Dirty alliances between governments and media companies and their handshakes behind closed doors damage journalists’ role as public watchdogs and prevent them from scrutinizing cronyism and abuses of power. And those who benefit from a continuation of corrupt practices also systematically seek to prevent serious investigative journalism."
"The problem is simple: one need only follow the money. Turkey’s mainstream media is owned by moguls who operate in other major sectors of the economy like telecommunications, banking and construction. Since only a few large TV channels and newspapers make profits, the proprietors tend to keep them as bait for the government, which needs media managers who are submissive to the will of politicians.
It is fertile ground for carrot-and-stick policies. The more willing the proprietors are, the more their greed is met. Several of Turkey’s media moguls have been given extensive favors through public-works contracts, including huge urban construction projects in Istanbul."
Then he reported the examples of the huge mainstream media in Turkey, where I often read from to know about news in Turkey.
"The daily Milliyet, once a flagship of good journalism, was acquired in 2012 by the Demiroren Group, which, among other ventures, is in the liquid propane gas business. In February 2013, Milliyet printed the minutes of talks between Kurdish politicians and the jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan. Two days later, a veteran Milliyet columnist, Hasan Cemal, boldly defended the paper’s decision to publish, declaring: “It’s one thing to publish a newspaper. It’s another to rule the country. The two should not be mixed. Everyone should mind their own business.” The scoop and the column infuriated Mr. Erdogan, who publicly condemned the paper and journalism more broadly. Mr. Cemal was given two weeks of forced leave. Upon his return, he wrote a new article on media freedom and independence, which was rejected by the paper’s owner, and Mr. Cemal resigned."
The case of Mr. Cemal above matches Baydar's situation as well. Being a bold columnist, he got formal expel from Sabah, the newspaper where he worked as the independent ombudsman since 2004. Of course, his columns were censored, as I mentioned before.
In his article, I can understand that the media outlet owner receives huge benifit from the goverment if their policies are pro government. As in the case of Ciner Group, the owner of Haberturk TV, Baydar reported that "the conglomerate has in the past years won a number of contracts for energy and electricity distribution". Or "At NTV, a news channel targeted by protesters for its poor coverage, a monthly magazine called NTV Tarih, which focuses exclusively on history, had a cover story in its July issue about Gezi Park’s past. The company’s management asked to see the issue’s content a day before it went to press. Management not only canceled the issue, but also discontinued publication altogether. NTV Tarih’s circulation had been 35,000, among the most commercially successful periodicals in Turkey. The owner of the NTV channel, Dogus Group, happens to have recently won a bid to build the large Galataport — a contract worth over $700 million — that will transform an old port in the center of Istanbul into a modern hub of tourism, shopping and real estate."
The more I read, the more my curiosity was satified, however, the worse I felt for the Turks, and the Kurds as well, and especially for Yavuz Baydar. I am very grateful for his bravery and for what he had revealed to the world. But the safety of him and his family in Turkey comes to my mind. Plenty of jounalists have to say bitter goodbye to their journalistic career in Turkey and many of them have been jailed for the true facts and their opinions. I really hope that Yavuz Baydar will not face the sad ending in Turkey.
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FNOTW: Turkey: How media and political bosses work together
