Judging journalism and the presumption of innocence

When the "conviction" verdict was announced via a statement from the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office and a subsequent speech by President Erdoğan, Esenyurt Mayor Ahmet Özer was still in custody. He had not even given his statement yet.

Pro-government media also supported this trial by media. From the very first hours when the news of his detention was heard, news sites and television channels began broadcasting claims that Ahmet Özer had ties to a terrorist organization. Transcripts of Özer's phone conversations were on the screen on A Haber.

Even after the police took Özer to the courthouse, Sabah, Elips Haber, and TGRT Ankara Representative Fatih Atik reported that a "trustee had been appointed to Esenyurt Municipality." When these broadcasts began, no arrest warrant had yet been issued for Özer. It was later understood that the name was incorrect, but it was true that the Ministry of Interior had completed preparations for the trustee without waiting for the court's decision. Beyoğlu District Governor Can Aksoy had been made Deputy Governor of Istanbul overnight and was then appointed as the trustee to Esenyurt Municipality.

The pro-government media did not just gleefully announce the appointment of the trustee the next morning. They used headlines that portrayed Ahmet Özer as guilty:

"What was he doing with PKK bombers?" (A Haber), "Connected to the PKK for 10 years" (CNN Türk), "Asked for votes for CHP from PKK members" (Akşam), "Ahmet Özer met with PKK member Remzi Kartal 14 times" (Aydınlık), "Sent money to a PKK/KCK member" (Sabah), "In contact with the PKK" (Türkgün), "Established a red line from Esenyurt to Qandil" (Türkiye), "CHP has moved Qandil to Esenyurt" (Yeni Akit).

Then, instead of reporting on the rally organized by the CHP and its criticisms, they turned the actions into negative propaganda by highlighting the cooperation with DEM and the mayors who did not attend.

It will be repetitive, but I must remind you. The Turkish Declaration of Rights and Responsibilities in Journalism includes the principle that "unless a judicial decision is finalized, a suspect or defendant should not be declared guilty." Furthermore, it is requested that publications that could influence the investigation be avoided and that information regarding allegations and accusations be published in a fair and balanced manner.

In the pro-government media's coverage of Ahmet Özer, these principles have been and are being clearly and deliberately violated. What those who ignore the "presumption of innocence" are doing is not journalism; it is operational journalism, just as it was during the Ergenekon and Balyoz conspiracy processes.

VIOLENCE AGAINST JOURNALISTS AND PARTISANSHIP

Sezgin Gülnar, the driver of Beşiktaş President Hasan Arat, who punched A Spor reporter Emre Kaplan after the Galatasaray-Beşiktaş match, was arrested and spent three days in jail.

However, while there was a reaction from Galatasaray to the violence against the journalist, Beşiktaş, on the contrary, objected to the arrest of the person who threw the punch. This is because Beşiktaş considered Emre Kaplan not a journalist but a "fanatic supporter."

To understand the issue, I looked at Emre Kaplan's social media profile. He had posted a photo of himself in a Galatasaray jersey on his profile; after the match where the attack took place, he mocked Beşiktaş by writing, "Get well soon Hasan Arat, get well soon Hüseyin Yücel. I wish you a speedy recovery." As a journalist, he should not have done this; he should not have acted like a fan.

A journalist being deeply involved with the team they cover is contrary to our professional codes. A fan-journalist's reports cannot be objective and balanced; they lose their credibility. Furthermore, their relationship with the team they cover and the fans and managers of other teams goes beyond the boundaries of journalism.

Of course, his acting against journalistic rules can never be a justification for violence. It was expected that the Beşiktaş management would also oppose violence without providing any justification. I hope Emre Kaplan and A Spor executives also accept that fan-reporting can lead to wrong outcomes.

WHY DIDN'T YOU GIVE US ADVERTISING?

The common feature of Odatv's reports titled "Ali Koç's intolerance for Odatv" and "Advertising to anti-Republicans on October 29: Censorship of Atatürk's words" was the targeting of Koç Holding, the CHP-run Maltepe Municipality, and İş Bankası for not placing advertisements on their site.

The first report stated, "While Koç Holding, where Fenerbahçe Sports Club President Ali Koç is the Deputy Chairman of the Board, placed advertisements on liberal news sites for October 29, it ignored Odatv, an influential news site with more followers."

In the second report, Maltepe Municipality and CHP-run municipalities were accused of placing advertisements on "liberal" news sites that have an "allergy to the republic." At the end of the report, it was emphasized that İş Bankası also gave Republic Day advertisements to these sites.

It is not new for Odatv to target İş Bankası for not giving them advertisements. A text titled "Collecting money from Atatürkists and distributing it lavishly: İş Bankası's love for 'libos' (liberals)" was published on Odatv last July. A year ago, a text titled "İş Bankası, represented by the CHP... Nothing for the national team, plenty for the 'libos'. Where is the advertising money going?" was used.

Let me state immediately that in these Odatv reports, there is no concrete data on where or how much Koç Holding, CHP municipalities, and İş Bankası spend on advertising; nor are there the views of the accused parties. Just because they did not give advertisements to Odatv, these organizations and the news sites they do advertise on are subjected to defamation. Moreover, I checked, and reports about these municipalities, companies, and organizations being targeted have been completely cut off; no news about them has been made on Odatv.

This attitude of Odatv means that journalism is being used as a weapon to obtain advertising. The reports function as bullets for that weapon instead of providing information. These are things that are incompatible with journalism...

"NATIONAL INTEREST" AND BIASED JOURNALISM

The Western press is carefully watching Turkey's development of relations with BRICS; reports and commentaries are being published one after another. They are trying to understand and explain whether Turkey, a NATO member, is turning its face from the West to the East.

However, our media is indifferent to this issue as if it does not concern Turkey. So much so that it was not our country's officials who announced that Turkey had applied for BRICS membership, but Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov; Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan confirmed it to Anadolu Agency two days later. But our media did not question this method, nor did it dwell on the BRICS application and its possible consequences—except for Sedat Ergin and Hande Fırat from Hürriyet.

Turkey not being accepted for membership at the summit in Kazan, and instead being taken into a secondary status like a "partner state," did not attract the attention of our media either. So much so that the journalists who went to Kazan with President Erdoğan did not even ask him about this negative development on the plane as he left there sadly... They were content with just listening to Erdoğan's words about the importance of BRICS.

Yet, what is envisioned for Turkey in BRICS is no different from being offered an "economic area" instead of full membership in the European Union. Despite this, there is no objection to BRICS from the pro-government media; these developments are not questioned.

A journalist's primary concern is to inform and enlighten the public. But when the interests of the AKP government are at stake, the pro-government media can even overlook the concepts of "national interest" and "national security." That is what happened in the BRICS matter.

THE FIGHT BETWEEN SHIPOWNER BROTHERS

"Trap by brother to famous shipowner: The person who tried to have the businessman killed turned out to be his brother." This headline in Sabah gave the impression that Şenol Demirbaş, one of the partners of Es Group, which houses Turkey's largest dredging vessel Kanuni and the main operation barge of the Marmaray Project, Armarin, had been convicted of trying to have his brother Erol Demirbaş killed.

However, the report did not contain any such information. The report stated that "famous shipowner Erol Demirbaş filed a criminal complaint against his brother on the grounds that he received death threats," and that the police had detained his brother Şenol Demirbaş and two other people in an operation and referred them to the courthouse. It also said "Allegation that my brother set up a death squad" on the photo.

So, it is not a judicial decision, but a criminal complaint by one brother against the other. Indeed, in the report published by 10Haber about a month before Sabah, Erol Demirbaş's complaint was reported with the headline "Throne fight between brothers in a giant company extended to the allegation of an attempted murder." In addition, a trustee had been appointed to two companies upon the application of Şenol Demirbaş.

It is wrong to accept one brother's criminal complaint in the fight between two brothers as definitive information and carry it to the headline as if it were a judicial decision. It is also a major deficiency and misleading not to follow up after writing "referred to the courthouse" and report whether they were released or not.

In a single sentence:

Despite being corrected and denials being published, Dinçer Gökçe from Halk TV and Nilay Can from Gazete Pencere were detained on the grounds of the report that "the prosecutor conducting the Newborn Gang investigation was dismissed."

IHA acted as a moral guardian by reporting on two young people kissing on the stairs near a mosque as "immoral images in the shadow of Kocatepe Mosque."

RTÜK revoked Açık Radyo's license, also stopping the radio's initiative to establish a new "Russell Tribunal" (Tribunal of Conscience) against Israel's massacres in Gaza.

ATV, Akşam, DHA, IHA, and Kanal D hid the name of the private hospital in Bursa in the report "Wrong treatment took our life," even though they included the hospital's response to the accusations.

Hürriyet published The Guardian's report with AI translation in strange Turkish as "If Mourinho's penalty pleas had not been ignored, the situation could have been worse"; an editor would have corrected it as "penalty appeal," not "penalty plea."

Sözcü, in its report "Encouragement to harassment, not punishment," used the photo of the woman who was harassed, not the convicted harasser school principal, and without blurring it properly.

Despite the contagious effect of suicide reports, Hürriyet and Sözcü published the report "Hit the child, cut himself," and Türkiye published the report "Female police officer took her own life at Istanbul Airport."

ATV and A Haber, in the report "First beaten, then stabbed," created an excuse for the murder by calling the male killer a "platonic lover."

Sabah's headline "German tourist fell from the rocks while climbing" is poor use of Turkish; it should have been "while climbing" instead of "while doing climbing."

The reports by Akşam, Hürriyet, Sözcü, and Yeni Şafak that "The terrorist's older brother turned out to be a security supervisor at Çiğli Municipality" and "Another brother turned out to be a municipal employee" are contrary to the principle of the personal nature of crimes.

Gerçek Gündem wrote "personnels" in the TUSAŞ report and Evrensel wrote "personnels" in the Diyarbakır Prison report, and Cumhuriyet wrote "tradesmen" in the cash payment limit report, but since these words are already plural, it would have been sufficient to say "personnel" and "tradesman."

FOR YOUR CRITICISMS, COMPLAINTS, AND SUGGESTIONS: [email protected]