CNN Türk’s paid programs

It had been alleged that senior executives at CNN Türk established a “shell” company and that money received from individuals featured on programs was transferred to this company. 

    In a statement issued by Demirören Media, the allegations published in Medyaradar, Odatv, and Flash Haber were characterized as a “smear campaign.” The statement said, “All kinds of commercial relations and agreements are conducted in accordance with the law and undergo strict audit processes.” 

    Since the Group Management has clearly denied the allegations that CNN Türk executives defrauded the channel through a shell company, the establishment of such a shell company is now a matter between Demirören Media and Ziraat Bank. The transfer of CNN Türk’s broadcasting revenues to this company called ERA Yapım has likely also caught the attention of Ziraat Bank, which has been unable to collect its 895 million dollar loan receivable and 25 million dollars in interest again this year.

     However, Demirören Media’s statement does not address the allegations that money was taken from individuals such as doctors and mayors who were featured on broadcasts. Yet, according to documents included in news reports and which I have also accessed, the method of featuring people on programs for a fee has also been applied in CNN Türk’s news bulletins. Agreements were made by taking money from private hospitals, and doctors from these hospitals appeared on news bulletins to promote them. By broadcasting covert advertisements under the guise of news, CNN Türk has deceived its viewers.

   In addition to doctors, money was also taken for various corporate events, festivals in municipalities, meetings, and interviews with mayors. For example, the Amasya Love Festival, interviews with Konya Metropolitan Municipality Mayor U. İbrahim Altay about a stray animal project, and the opening of the technology base of a firm called Glass House in İzmir were all broadcast in this manner.

    Unfortunately, broadcasting such events that have no news value in exchange for money is not a practice unique to CNN Türk. This practice, which continues at full speed on almost all news channels, is now seen as a natural method in television broadcasting. 

   However, the fact that a wrong is so widespread does not make it right; nor does it mean it is correct. Journalism is being converted into money, and journalistic principles are being trampled upon. The viewer is absolutely right not to trust these channels. When the criterion for news value becomes money, television broadcasting turns into public relations and advertising activity. 

    THE DEPUTY MINISTER’S PRIVACY!

    Deputy Minister of Justice Ramazan Can’s text messaging on his mobile phone during a program at the Court of Cassation was caught by a FOX TV camera! Can was reportedly reviewing requests for favoritism (torpil) for a promotion interview exam one by one and sending them to his private secretary for implementation.

     I watched the footage shot by cameraman Mahmut Özgün; the cameras are right behind Deputy Minister Can. But he continues to type away comfortably without paying attention to the cameras or trying to hide his phone; FOX TV also records his correspondence. At the end of the program, reporter Fırat Irmak approaches to attempt an interview, but Can turns his back and walks away.

    When asked the next day, Can said, “There are no favoritism messages or anything. Take a look at fundamental rights and freedoms, personal rights and freedoms, and the issue of privacy. Can a mobile phone be filmed for half an hour?” 

     Apparently, Can wants to draw attention to the confidentiality of private correspondence; he argues that it is objectionable for his private communication to be monitored without his knowledge. But Can is not just any person, and his correspondence is not on a private or intimate matter. 

     Can is conducting this correspondence in a public space; he is a public official, and he is carrying on correspondence related to his public duty. More importantly, there is a public interest in this broadcast. This news has documented the influence of AKP members on the interview exams at the Ministry of Justice. The fact that a publication ban and access block were brought against the news is proof of how great its impact is.

    It is a good thing the FOX TV cameraman caught that footage... He stood out among dozens of his colleagues who were content with recording the speech of the person on the podium and reporting the routine. He had an eye that did not miss the details, congratulations...

       THE BOSS’S FRIEND IS ALSO THE JOURNALIST’S FRIEND! 

    The jury for the “Athlete of the Year awards,” which Milliyet has been organizing for 70 years, met in Barcelona this year. Why Barcelona instead of Istanbul? Just like the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) suddenly deciding that the “Super Cup” match between Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray should be played in Riyadh, this is also...

    No satisfactory explanation was given, but it was possible to understand the reason for the jury meeting in Barcelona from Milliyet’s reports on the subject. In a box on the page announcing the meeting in Barcelona, the speech of “Nihat Özdemir, owner of Limak, who hosted the grand jury in Barcelona” was being reported. In the middle of the page, there was also a photograph of Nihat Özdemir taken with the newspaper’s boss, Yıldırım Demirören.

    It did not stop there; a few days later, a report titled “Turkish signature on Camp Nou” was published in Milliyet. Nihat Özdemir gave a tour of the Barcelona football stadium, which they were contracted to build, to Erkan Aykaç from Milliyet, who then wrote a full page of praise. Similar reports and interviews were also published in the newspapers Akşam, Türkiye, and Yeni Birlik, as well as on some YouTube accounts. 

     Just a few months ago, Nihat Özdemir had been the target of criticism in Spain due to the tree massacre committed in the Akbelen forests by YK Enerji, a joint venture with IC Holding, and the “Akbelen solidarity” in Turkey had sent a letter to the President of Barcelona Football Club to terminate his agreement with LİMAK. Nihat Özdemir had a need to make people forget the tree massacre in Akbelen and to gain sympathy in public opinion; sports journalists were used as tools for this.

     Nihat Özdemir received the return for hosting Milliyet’s sports awards and hosting sports programmers and writers in Barcelona through “advertisements disguised as news.” Unfortunately, the boss’s friend is treated as the journalist’s friend as well. A pity for journalism...

    ONE-SENTENCE JOURNALISM DISASTER 

    One of the accounts that claims to do “journalism” with short posts on social media, Korkunç Haber, had a video post about two small children that was truly terrible.

    Over the footage of two young boys, who appeared to be of a young age, hugging each other on the stairs of an apartment building, they had written the following sentence:

     “The mother, who became suspicious after her son said that his classmate was constantly coming to their house and that they were going to football together with the family’s permission, was shocked by the scene she saw when she examined the house’s camera recordings.”

       The source of the footage was unclear, and no other information was provided. Where and from whom did they get the apartment’s security camera recordings, where and when were those images taken, are the images real, or is it a fictional shoot? The answers to these questions were also unclear.

       Without providing any information or conducting research, people’s interest was piqued by creating the perception that the children were having a homosexual relationship. They were successful in this as well; when I checked, the number of people who viewed this post had exceeded 4.5 million. 

     We do not know if those children are actually having a homosexual relationship. Even if they were, publishing those images is irresponsible. Furthermore, the children’s faces are visible, not blurred. They are being deliberately exposed. 

     The profile of the account that committed this irresponsibility says “Sensitive news summaries,” they are supposedly doing journalism. But what they are doing shows that they do not even carry human concern, let alone journalistic ethics. 

In one sentence:

• Days have passed since Sözcü published the news on January 2 titled “Eventful allegation from our writer Yasin Yıldırım: Büyükekşi is leaving today,” but the “eventful allegation” has still not been verified.

• It was wrong for Yeniçağ to report “It turns out the winner who bought a 400 million ticket from Colombia resembles a famous person” without checking social media posts. 
• A journalist does not use expressions like Baki Özışık’s “Sinan Ateş had a stance, and the MHP did what was necessary,” and does not approve of a murder for any reason.
• On January 4, on page 7 of Sözcü, there was a report that “Zucchini is the champion of price hikes,” while on page 8, there was a report that “The biggest increase was in eggplant.”  
• The manufacturer company, whose name was missing in Sabah’s report “Serial production has started in the domestic train set,” was established through a partnership between the domestic company MNG Holding and the Chinese company CRRC.
• On the front page of Korkusuz, there were three separate reports about the New Year’s program of “İbo Show.”
• The sub-headline “Eclipses can trigger earthquakes” used by Hürriyet in an interview with two astrologers was wrong; it had been scientifically proven that there is no relationship between eclipses and earthquakes. 
• Akşam reported the Court of Cassation Chief Public Prosecutor’s statement, which showed a decrease in the number of AKP members, with the headline “AK Party is first in number of members.”  
• The Halktv website quoted Evrensel’s report “58 deputies have not spoken at all since the election: Single man, silent deputies” without citing the source. 
• Türkiye newspaper made a covert advertisement for the İhlas group’s construction company in its report titled “Delivery one year early at Bizimevler 9 and 10.”
• The promising news in Hürriyet titled “Vibrating pill will make you eat less” stated that the drug was still in the PHASE 1 stage and had not yet been tested on humans. 
• The pro-government media reported President Erdoğan’s words “We broke the export record in the history of the Republic,” but the record in imports was never mentioned.  

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