Did everyone in the square curse in unison?

We are in the midst of a tangle of contradictions. No matter which end you pull, it falls apart in your hands; those who deem their own actions permissible get angry when they see the same attitude from the other side.

CHP Chairman Özgür Özel lashed out at television channels that ignored the protest rallies attended by hundreds of thousands:

“Channels like A Haber, TRT, and TGRT did not see this situation. Halk TV, Sözcü TV, and Tele 1 resisted. I am calling out to both RTÜK and the Information and Communication Technologies Authority: Do not even think about trying to touch the free press, social media, or YouTube broadcasters. I will stand in your way!”

He also called for a boycott of the companies belonging to these media groups. Of course, politicians have the right to criticize and react to the media, but as a journalist, a boycott is not a behavior that sits well with me, to be honest. Moreover, while opposing the advertising and official notice bans that the political power has applied to the opposition media for years, it is debatable how consistent it is to engage in economic sanctions against the pro-government media.

However, RTÜK Chairman Ebubekir Şahin reacting to Özgür Özel's words is a tragicomic state of mind where he sees rights for himself but bans for others. A few days ago, by announcing that “sanctions that could lead to license cancellations will be applied,” Şahin, who called for censorship and threatened Halk TV, Sözcü TV, and Tele1 for broadcasting the protests, has now shifted to the defense that “the interesting boycott wars launched against Turkey's most valuable brands are also being watched with concern.”

It is very clear. For Şahin, there are “acceptable channels” and there are “always guilty” television stations. Clearly, this is the source of his ease in accusing opposition channels while defending the channels Özel criticized.

Media outlets that alienate and target

But what worries me most are the expressions in Şahin's latest post that present all the protesters as if they had collectively cursed President Erdoğan's mother, collectively damaged mosques, collectively thrown acid at the police, and collectively displayed disgraceful acts…

Unfortunately, this approach does not belong only to Şahin; government spokespeople and pro-government media also display such an understanding of journalism. And they have been maintaining this consistently since the first day that reactions to the operations against Ekrem İmamoğlu spread across the country. Let me convey the nature of these broadcasts with a few examples:

“The ignoble have no sacred values,” “Özel called, the marginals met on the street (Diriliş Postası),” “They embraced street terror (Milliyet/ Sabah/ Takvim),” “Özgür Özel provoked, they cursed Erdoğan's late mother,” “Attack on Mimar Sinan's work (Yeni Şafak),” “Vandalism (Sabah),” “Molotov cocktails and acid at the police,” “The scoundrels of Saraçhane (Akşam),” “They drank alcohol in the mosque and smashed historical graves (Yeni Akit).”

These are broadcasts that alienate all the people who gathered in Saraçhane and various cities of Turkey for the protest and contain hate speech. They did not even refrain from publishing news and articles and making statements that targeted, provoked, and incited by saying “We are on watch” and “They drank alcohol in the mosque and smashed historical graves.”

Indeed, following the provocative and inciting broadcasts, calls for iftar were made at the Şehzadebaşı Mosque by groups affiliated with İBDA-C. Fortunately, there were those who intervened from both the CHP and the Governor's Office, and they were persuaded to abandon the iftar, eliminating the possibility of a conflict.

A striking example of distortion

The incident of cursing President Erdoğan's mother was the act of a small group after Özgür Özel got off the bus and left the area. Özgür Özel and CHP executives also condemned this immorality later on. But government television stations, news sites, and newspapers published it as if everyone in the square had participated in this shame, as if Özgür Özel had even encouraged it, and as if opposition television channels had broadcast it live; they clearly engaged in disinformation.

For example, Yeni Şafak wrote under the headline “The Immoral Ones” that “…those who gathered in Saraçhane crossed the line. During and after Özel's speech, they targeted Erdoğan and his family. Those in the group who ‘reached the peak of immorality’ chanted slogans containing insults and curses directed at Erdoğan and his late mother.” These expressions, which alienated and humiliated everyone in the area, were not true; let alone targeting Erdoğan's family, Özgür Özel was constantly opposing the insulting slogans he heard while in the square.

Akşam, AHaber, Yeni Akit, Haber7, and Ensonhaber displayed the most striking example of distortion during this process. The news they gave under the headline “Let those who say let's clash with the police raise their hands” incompletely reflected Özgür Özel's words. In the continuation of that sentence, Özgür Özel was trying to silence those who said let's march towards Taksim by saying “Let those who say let's not do this in the square, let's keep the struggle on a legitimate ground raise their hands,” and was warning the crowd not to engage in a clash with the police.

Arrested journalists

Similarly, the pro-government media branded all the protesters as “Vandals.” The one that went the furthest was CNN Türk. News Manager Nihat Uludağ listed “organizations participating in the protests” in a broadcast; moreover, he characterized the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP), which is a legal party, as a “terrorist organization.” Uludağ later called TKP General Secretary Kemal Okuyan and apologized, but there was no step back from the defamatory broadcast claiming that many illegal terrorist organizations, from DHKP-C to the “FETÖ Parallel State Structure,” also participated in the protest demonstrations.

In fact, those who threw acid, Molotov cocktails, and fireworks at the police and attacked were small groups. Highlighting a few attacks and ignoring the news value of the largest protest demonstrations in recent years is a direct attempt to mislead the public. I cannot explain it with journalistic concerns either.

If the editors of these media organizations had journalistic concerns, they would have at least opposed the arrest of our seven colleagues while they were chasing news, simply for watching the demonstrations and reporting on them.

Let alone opposing it, they did not even report the arrest of the journalists properly. In most of them, there was not even any news; in Hürriyet, it was the last sentence of the last line.