A submissive media’ will get us nowhere

The media in Turkey operates in an increasingly limited professional field of activity; could it be that it has become subject to a new form of influence? Over recent months this is a question that has been asked with increasing frequency and volume, and it would seem that it has now found an answer.
 
Last Saturday President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met with around 20 ‘specially selected’ media representatives in the Sarı Köşk of Istanbul’s Beylerbeyi Palace. The meeting, which lasted almost three hours, came after the NATO summit and the visit to Turkey by US Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense, both of which focused on the fight against ISIS. Immediately after the Beylerbeyi meeting Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu held another meeting, again with ‘specially selected’ media representatives.
 
In democratic countries such meetings are generally announced to the public using transparent language, with the aim of allowing questions that are on the mind of the public and that require a response to be asked and answered, and to inform the public of the discussions.
 
This meeting, however, once again confirm that the relationship between the political authorities and the media in Turkey has taken a wrong turn. When asked what had been discussed at the meeting, one high-level newspaper director and columnist, supposedly a ‘journalist’ by profession, gave the following answer:
 
‘As the meeting was closed to the press, I am not in a position to share exactly what the President spoke of, but I can say that it was not a meeting in which in-depth discussions were held on current political issues.’
 
‘The meeting was closed to the press…’
 
Such language clearly shows how in this new regime known as the ‘New Turkey’ a ‘New Media Class’ is being formed. The approach to publishing that is reflected in the language of this sector of the media, its indifference towards the most fundamental professional issues and the relationship of reciprocal benefit it has formed with the government are now sufficiently well-known and are a constant cause for concern.
 
A similar meeting was held at the Adile Sultan Palace one week after the 30 March elections, and following the meeting media representatives avoided any questions, saying ‘let’s just say it was a private discussion.’
 
It is clear from these meetings that the Erdoğan-Davutoğlu government plans to create a new precedent for the relationship between the government and the media.
 
For now let’s leave aside the issue of whether or not the so-called ‘journalists’ that joined the meeting have any concern for the question of what it means to be a journalist and for the constitutional responsibilities that come with the profession, and indeed whether or not they even take the trouble to reflect on this question.
 
The position that they have assigned themselves and the view that they have all along held of the media is now clear.
 
The most important aspect of the issue is related to the preferences of the government, or more specifically of Erdoğan and Davutoğlu.
 
The media organisations invited to the Beylerbeyi meeting were much the same as those invited to the Adile Sultan Palace on 6 April 2014.
 
According to a report by the Hürriyet newspaper, the ‘delegation’ that took part in the latest meeting included the following organisations: the Turkuvaz Group (Sabah-ATV, AHaber, Daily Sabah), Kanal7, the İhlas Media Group (Türkiye-TGRT), Star Medya (Kanal24, Star), Akşam Newspaper, Yeni Akit, Yeni Şafak, Beyaz TV.
 
The list of invitees says more than enough about those who were not invited. Those left off the list were not limited to the Zaman and Ipek media groups that have recently been the target of Erdoğan’s personal hostility, but encompass many independent newspapers, from Hürriyet to Cumhuriyet and Taraf, and various left-leaning newspapers.
 
We can predict that an even stricter attitude will be taken, which will marginalise a significant section of the media, that stronger language will bring further polarisation and that independent journalism will become even more difficult in terms of the sourcing of funding and information.
 
The precedent set out first by the Adile Sultan meeting and then by that at Beylerbeyi can be defined as follows: The AKP, which was brought to power by a broad section of the public with great hopes, has, under the leadership of Erdoğan, quickly adopted Ankara’s traditional statist codes, reaching a point at which it dismisses the basic right to receive information, and rejects an approach to governance that embraces transparency and accountability, something that should be its main duty.
 
In the period of military influence, the dominant approach in Ankara was based on ‘special selection,’ and the different sectors of the media were controlled by an accreditation system that was marginalising, censorial and prescriptive. Erdoğan and Davutoğlu have now inherited this system and have begun to implement this same ‘military’ attitude towards a media that is afraid of asking them questions on real current affairs.
 
This attitude has not the slightest relation to democracy, to being democratic, to a libertarian understanding of government, or to respecting the social role played by journalism.
 
And let me add the following: During the NATO summit, the only NATO delegation not to appear before the press was the Turkish delegation, something that led to criticism and mockery in the international press that covered the summit. This closed attitude, a vestige of that of the Cold War and the legacy of the 1980 military coup, clearly provides ample information about the ‘New Turkey.’
 
Erdoğan and Davutoğlu’s encouragement of a submissive media that serves as a megaphone for the government with which it is affiliated, reminiscent of that of the republics of the Caucasus and of Central Asia, is a mentality that must be abandoned immediately. Not only will insisting on such an approach further divide society and drive it towards further mistrust and suspicion, it will also add fuel to the fire of brave and honourable journalists and editors, the like of whom have defended the honour of the profession throughout history.