The Turkish press quick to throw stones

 
 
As a cat is to a dog, so is a journalist to an editor. Sometimes they get along just fine, but it is not in the natural order of things. A journalist’s first priority is to the story as he or she finds it; editors think about the reputation of their institution and keeping the readers on board. Along the way, sacrifices are made, paragraphs chopped, nuance tossed out the window.
 
Even when the editor hardly changes a word, the story on the page can convey meanings in addition to what the journalist intended. Very rarely does a journalist have any say over the headline or the accompanying photo let alone decide whether the story gets a splash on the front or is buried inside.
 
No matter how alone or brave the reporter, news is ultimately a collective effort and involves, therefore, a notion of collective responsibility. And while the reporter’s by-line appears on top, ultimately it is the editor who is accountable. This makes edited news different from a blog. A story – edited, then fact-checked, then edited again onto to the page – carries a different authority from a tweet. The Economist, for example does not even give the name of its correspondents – not to shield them from criticism, but as a way of emphasising that every word in the paper reflects the opinion of the entire editorial staff.
 
None of this is rocket science. It explains why news institutions are zealous of their good name, quick to weed out those who violate their principles and prompt in correcting a mistake. The integrity of the institution is what sells the product. Get things wrong on a regular basis, cultivate a reputation for being biased or unreliable, and no one buys your product. Why would they, except to confirm their own prejudice?
 
This explains why the public is so badly served by news organisations that do not rely on their own integrity to make ends meet. If the accuracy of your headline doesn’t affect your financial bottomline then there is no incentive to get it right.  Indeed, if the only reason to own a newspaper or television station is to win government contacts, then the incentive is to put only one point of view.
 
As P24, we bemoan that in so many cases Turkish media has so squandered its integrity, that no one even expects it to be fair or accurate. Reliability no longer has a market value; truth has been devalued. There are exceptions, but most media prefer to print or broadcast what they want to be true, not what they know to be true.
 
And this helps to explain the rabid enthusiasm a corrupted media display when a publication that depends on its reputation gets its wrong.
 
We have seen an example of this recently in the wholesale campaign in the Turkish media against the young New York Times reporter, Ceylan Yeğinsu who ably documented the recruitment of disaffected Turkish youth to fight across the border for the radical Islamic State. This was happening openly, in the heart of Ankara not far from the very mosque where the Turkish president and prime minister sometimes attend Friday prayers.
 
A photograph of these senior politicians emerging from the mosque might have given the impression that the recruitment was happening with their connivance.  This was not the case, and the paper withdrew the photo from the on-line edition after the Turkish president complained. “Shameless, ignominious and low,” were the words he used to describe the article. 
 
Such vituperation was his right, even if one might question his assertion that the liberties taken by one photo editor truly constituted what he also described as a systematic “operation” to change international perceptions of Turkey to undermine its economy.  The pro-government press did not question that assertion and indeed embellished it by adding the word “treasonous” to the president’s list of accusations – a word he did not say.  They also printed the word next to a large photograph of the reporter, wilfully repeating the malpractice against which they complained.
 
It would be hyperbole in the extreme to compare this targeting of the New York Times journalist to IS’s own treatment of foreign correspondents. So far not even the most vituperative pro-government publication has demanded a beheading. Yet they cannot plead total innocence that the journalist they tried to bully has begun to receive death threats and, as a result, gone into hiding. Nor, given similar incidents in the past, can they have been surprised.
 
Why would they wilfully endanger a member of their own profession rather than level their accusations against the editors of the New York Times?
 
The answer in part is that a swathe of the Turkish press sees their primary obligation as to defend the government at whatever cost. It does not occur to them to take issue with the editor not the reporter since the notion of editorial responsibility is not one to which they can relate. The more insidious explanation is that this same section of the media crave affirmation of their own lack of integrity and what more trustworthy place to find it than in the pages of the New York Times.