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TURKEY: WITH MAINSTREAM MEDIA MUZZLED, ALTERNATIVE OUTLETS PLUG GAPS
EurasiaNet.org
Jan 14 2014
January 14, 2014 - 12:55pm, by By Yigal Schleifer
After working as a respected journalist for 25 years in numerous
capacities, including a stint as a columnist at one of Turkey's
largest newspapers, Serdar Akinan found himself in early 2013 at
a career crossroads: would he continue working in the mainstream
Turkish media or open up a pizza place?
It would be hard to blame Akinan for wanting to get out of his
profession. Over the last few years, Turkey has become an increasingly
unpleasant place for journalists, with columnists and reporters
regularly getting fired for being too critical of the government. In
Akinan's case, he found himself out of work two years ago after being
unceremoniously fired by Aksam, a major newspaper, for writing columns
that he believes led to complaints from the office of Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
After taking some time off, Akinan tried to find work in newspapers
or magazines, but found that he had essentially been blacklisted.
Seemingly unable to return to journalism, he was considering a move
into the pizza business when a friend offered to give him financial
support to launch his own news website, one that would ride on the
strength of Akinan's reputation and his 220,000 Twitter followers.
The result was Vagus.tv, fortuitously launched only a few days
before last summer's Gezi Park protests. Although it is struggling
financially, the site has been able to quickly build a loyal audience,
Akinan says. "I realized people needed news they can trust and they
lost their trust in the big media," he says, speaking in a small
conference room of a shared office space in Istanbul's waterfront
Karakoy neighborhood.
Akinan's story is an instructive one. As the mainstream Turkish media
becomes increasingly muzzled by the government - or, more precisely,
by owners worried about angering the government and jeopardizing
other business interests they might have - and a glut of talented
sacked journalists is flooding the market, a new space is emerging
for plucky independent media ventures.
"In this media environment, it's not about what resources you have,
but what your attitude is," said Dogan Akin, a veteran journalist and
founder of T24, perhaps the most successful of Turkey's new online
news ventures. "With all the money they have, the big organizations
can't report on the news, while independent organizations might not
have a lot of money, but we can report the news."
"We wouldn't be able to compete with the big media players unless
the state of the media in Turkey is as it is," added Akin, whose site
has become a refuge for a number of well-respected writers who have
recently been fired from their positions at other papers.
The state of the Turkish mainstream media certainly appears to be
dire. Along with the axing of critical reporters, there is also the
matter of Turkey being the world's leading jailer of journalists
(most of them Kurds, imprisoned under harsh terrorism laws). The
media in Turkey has become so averse to crossing the government that
on the first night that the Gezi protests became too large to ignore,
the country's leading networks did just that, with CNN Turk famously
showing a documentary about penguins rather than the events taking
place in the heart of Istanbul.
"Before the AKP government, it was normal for the army's chief of
staff to arrange meetings with journalists and editors, and issue
orders on how things should be reported," says Nadire Mater, who runs
Bianet, a long-running independent media center that supports several
projects, including news sites in Turkish and English. "Now Erdogan
is acting in a similar way to the generals. Here we refer to him as
'editor-in-chief of the entire media.' Power is power - armed or
unarmed. He wants a media that only adores him, without criticism."
"The challenge is how to operate outside of this atmosphere," she said.
For IMC TV, an upstart national television station launched in 2011,
this means being funded by a sole benefactor, a Kurdish businessman
who made his money in the shoe trade. This arrangement allows the
channel to avoid having to deal with skittish advertisers. IMC, which
could be described as the anti-penguin network, pays particularly
close attention to minority issues, with a show in Armenian and,
on staff, Turkey's first transgender news reporter. The station also
runs what might be one of the more unique programs anywhere: a debate
show featuring a panel made up entirely of journalists who have been
dismissed from their previous jobs for being too critical.
"The hardest thing in journalism now in Turkey is to define what is
true and what is not, to get through the manipulation and report the
truth. We are trying to do this as much as we can," said the station's
news director, Aris Nalci.
For now, the government seems to be keeping its hands off the emerging
independent media outlets, preferring to focus instead on maintaining
discipline within the outlets loyal to it. "What they intend on doing
is controlling what they regard as the mainstream, and what they can't
allow is for the press that supports them to have doubts or create
doubts in the minds of people. And they seem to be very successful
in doing that," said Andrew Finkel, a long-time foreign correspondent
in Turkey who has also worked for several Turkish publications.
Still, he added, the Turkish media's dismal performance during the
Gezi events may have satisfied the government, but it also may have
created an opening for a space in which new independent projects can
thrive. "I see the space for independent media to exist in Turkey,"
said Finkel, who is working with a group of Turkish journalists
on creating a non-profit that will provide support for independent
investigative reporting. "Every generation in Turkey has produced a
press instrument that defines that generation. It seems to me that
the next wave has to be internet-based, with an element of social
media to it."
The challenge now, says T24's Akin, is not just filling the vacuum
created by the failure of Turkey's mainstream media, but filling it
with quality journalism that avoids the bad habits of the past.
"Just because the big media is bad, it doesn't automatically make
us good. In order to be an alternative, we have to improve our
professional standards," he said. "If we can improve our standards,
then we can institutionalize the development of an independent media
in Turkey."
Editor's note: Yigal Schleifer is a freelance journalist who
specializes in Turkish affairs.
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/67938
EurasiaNet.org
Jan 14 2014
January 14, 2014 - 12:55pm, by By Yigal Schleifer
After working as a respected journalist for 25 years in numerous
capacities, including a stint as a columnist at one of Turkey's
largest newspapers, Serdar Akinan found himself in early 2013 at
a career crossroads: would he continue working in the mainstream
Turkish media or open up a pizza place?
It would be hard to blame Akinan for wanting to get out of his
profession. Over the last few years, Turkey has become an increasingly
unpleasant place for journalists, with columnists and reporters
regularly getting fired for being too critical of the government. In
Akinan's case, he found himself out of work two years ago after being
unceremoniously fired by Aksam, a major newspaper, for writing columns
that he believes led to complaints from the office of Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
After taking some time off, Akinan tried to find work in newspapers
or magazines, but found that he had essentially been blacklisted.
Seemingly unable to return to journalism, he was considering a move
into the pizza business when a friend offered to give him financial
support to launch his own news website, one that would ride on the
strength of Akinan's reputation and his 220,000 Twitter followers.
The result was Vagus.tv, fortuitously launched only a few days
before last summer's Gezi Park protests. Although it is struggling
financially, the site has been able to quickly build a loyal audience,
Akinan says. "I realized people needed news they can trust and they
lost their trust in the big media," he says, speaking in a small
conference room of a shared office space in Istanbul's waterfront
Karakoy neighborhood.
Akinan's story is an instructive one. As the mainstream Turkish media
becomes increasingly muzzled by the government - or, more precisely,
by owners worried about angering the government and jeopardizing
other business interests they might have - and a glut of talented
sacked journalists is flooding the market, a new space is emerging
for plucky independent media ventures.
"In this media environment, it's not about what resources you have,
but what your attitude is," said Dogan Akin, a veteran journalist and
founder of T24, perhaps the most successful of Turkey's new online
news ventures. "With all the money they have, the big organizations
can't report on the news, while independent organizations might not
have a lot of money, but we can report the news."
"We wouldn't be able to compete with the big media players unless
the state of the media in Turkey is as it is," added Akin, whose site
has become a refuge for a number of well-respected writers who have
recently been fired from their positions at other papers.
The state of the Turkish mainstream media certainly appears to be
dire. Along with the axing of critical reporters, there is also the
matter of Turkey being the world's leading jailer of journalists
(most of them Kurds, imprisoned under harsh terrorism laws). The
media in Turkey has become so averse to crossing the government that
on the first night that the Gezi protests became too large to ignore,
the country's leading networks did just that, with CNN Turk famously
showing a documentary about penguins rather than the events taking
place in the heart of Istanbul.
"Before the AKP government, it was normal for the army's chief of
staff to arrange meetings with journalists and editors, and issue
orders on how things should be reported," says Nadire Mater, who runs
Bianet, a long-running independent media center that supports several
projects, including news sites in Turkish and English. "Now Erdogan
is acting in a similar way to the generals. Here we refer to him as
'editor-in-chief of the entire media.' Power is power - armed or
unarmed. He wants a media that only adores him, without criticism."
"The challenge is how to operate outside of this atmosphere," she said.
For IMC TV, an upstart national television station launched in 2011,
this means being funded by a sole benefactor, a Kurdish businessman
who made his money in the shoe trade. This arrangement allows the
channel to avoid having to deal with skittish advertisers. IMC, which
could be described as the anti-penguin network, pays particularly
close attention to minority issues, with a show in Armenian and,
on staff, Turkey's first transgender news reporter. The station also
runs what might be one of the more unique programs anywhere: a debate
show featuring a panel made up entirely of journalists who have been
dismissed from their previous jobs for being too critical.
"The hardest thing in journalism now in Turkey is to define what is
true and what is not, to get through the manipulation and report the
truth. We are trying to do this as much as we can," said the station's
news director, Aris Nalci.
For now, the government seems to be keeping its hands off the emerging
independent media outlets, preferring to focus instead on maintaining
discipline within the outlets loyal to it. "What they intend on doing
is controlling what they regard as the mainstream, and what they can't
allow is for the press that supports them to have doubts or create
doubts in the minds of people. And they seem to be very successful
in doing that," said Andrew Finkel, a long-time foreign correspondent
in Turkey who has also worked for several Turkish publications.
Still, he added, the Turkish media's dismal performance during the
Gezi events may have satisfied the government, but it also may have
created an opening for a space in which new independent projects can
thrive. "I see the space for independent media to exist in Turkey,"
said Finkel, who is working with a group of Turkish journalists
on creating a non-profit that will provide support for independent
investigative reporting. "Every generation in Turkey has produced a
press instrument that defines that generation. It seems to me that
the next wave has to be internet-based, with an element of social
media to it."
The challenge now, says T24's Akin, is not just filling the vacuum
created by the failure of Turkey's mainstream media, but filling it
with quality journalism that avoids the bad habits of the past.
"Just because the big media is bad, it doesn't automatically make
us good. In order to be an alternative, we have to improve our
professional standards," he said. "If we can improve our standards,
then we can institutionalize the development of an independent media
in Turkey."
Editor's note: Yigal Schleifer is a freelance journalist who
specializes in Turkish affairs.
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/67938