We are still optimistic that what started as peaceful
protests in Istanbul’s Gezi Park in Taksim Square and then turned into
widespread protests against the Justice and Development Party’s increasingly
authoritarian rule can strengthen Turkish democracy. But before this part
protest part political movement can achieve this, it has to overcome a huge
barrier: the Turkish media.
Much more than the government’s intransigence, it is the
Turkish media’s silence and often complicity that stands in the way of the
demands for a more representative and accountable government style turning into
reality.
As Daron’s op-ed in the New York Times noted, at the
height of the protests while CNN International was reporting live from Taksim
Square, the local channel, CNN Turk, was airing programs on penguins and
cooking shows. And CNN Turk wasn’t alone. All of Turkish media has been
strangely, depressingly silent, or worse, misleading.
This is because most media outlets have been toeing the
party line, particularly on topics to which they think the government will pay
attention.
The media’s silence has consequences. For example, police
brutality towards protesters has been much greater in Ankara and several other
cities than in Istanbul (though of course as the international media has been
reporting, the disproportionate use of force, indiscriminate use of tear gas
and arrests of peaceful protesters have been commonplace in Istanbul too). We
first thought this might be because left-wing extremist groups, which have
tried (mostly unsuccessfully) to hijack the protests in Istanbul, may have been
more active and provoking more violent clashes in Ankara and some other cities.
But talking to a few people involved with or informed about the protests made
it clear that the reason was likely quite different: some have hypothesized
that foreign media was in Istanbul, so police brutality there would be
reported, whereas vigilance outside Istanbul was up to Turkish media, and their
vigilance was no vigilance. So the police could do what they wanted with
impunity.
There are reasons why Turkish media is choosing silence
or even lies rather than speaking truth to power. Most of the media is owned by
companies beholden to the government for their lucrative contracts in other
lines of business.
Moreover, the government is willing to use the legal
system to go after its critics. As we noted a couple of months ago, Turkey now
has more journalists in jail than even China. Just a few days ago, the
outspoken journalist Ahmet Altan has been convicted of insulting Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (his crime: he wrote a strongly worded , critical column).
But this sorry status quo is showing cracks, as we
previously noted here.
First, it has become impossible for all of Turkish media
to ignore the human side of the protests. So
some journalists have recently started covering the protests and even
recounting stories from the viewpoint of the protesters.
Second, the foreign media’s attention has created an
opening, perhaps even incentives, for some journalists to jump ship. Last
weekend, for example, Yavuz Baydar, a columnist for one of the newspapers most
loyal to the government, Sabah, wrote a fairly accurate critique of Turkish
media’s complicity in the increasingly repressive atmosphere in Turkey and the
role therein of the media bosses. (One disagreement with his otherwise
excellent article: the comparison of the role of the media in Turkey to that in
countries such as Argentina is misplaced; many journalists and leading
newspapers in Argentina, for example, have courageously challenged the power of
their president in a way that has so far had no parallel in Turkey).
Third, there are of course always some brave souls such
as Ahmet Altan, Yavuz Baydar or the veteran journalist Hasan Cemal, recently
forced from his position in another daily because of his bold columns, who are
willing to follow their nose and express their opinions (even if they are
sometimes wrong). We should pin our hopes as much to their courage and
integrity as to the changing circumstances to perhaps one day save Turkish
media from its sorry state.
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