P24 on the road reporting the 30 March election

Turkey goes to the polls this Sunday and yes, the pundits are right that the election is turning into a referendum on the integrity of a government trying to free itself from the mire of a corruption scandal. But there is still truth to the adage that all politics are local – and these are local and municipal elections after all. National issues are still filtered through local concerns.

As P24 we felt an obligation to find out not just how the Istanbul copy editors are spinning the news but to how local candidates are defining the issues, and to how provincial newspaper and television stations are reporting contest. To do this, we organised a series of trips around the country and we tried to give pride of place to those journalists, many of them distinguished correspondents, who have lost their jobs in the current climate of polarisation and intolerance. We also invited colleagues from the international press. Those who could, paid their own way but we were happy to subsidise those who couldn’t from a generous grant given to us by the NIRAS group of companies with the BBC Trust.
 
They were in Rize on the Black Sea from where the prime minister’s own family hails. They were in Hatay on the Syrian border where  a civil war across the border intrudes on everyday life. P24 spent Nevruz in Diyarbakir and it will visit Konya and Kayseri, the Central Anatolian heartland, this week.
 
You can read the results of this expedition in a variety of places including our own Platform24 website and the independent Turkish news portal, T24. We are fortunate that many commentators writing in English are also contributing to this  site.
 
We are a young organisation but we are doing our best to hit the ground running and to broaden the terms of the debate. Please support our efforts.
 
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