Awarding plaques in the name of Uğur Mumcu

I read the news about the award ceremony in Eskişehir after journalist Lûbe Ayar’s reaction to an award “bearing the name of Uğur Mumcu” being given to lawyer Rezan Epözdemir. 

    The “31st ÇGD Uğur Mumcu Commemoration Night and Award Ceremony” was organized jointly by the Contemporary Journalists Association (ÇGD) Eskişehir Branch and the Journalists Union of Turkey (TGS), along with the Tepebaşı Municipality. In addition to journalists, awards were also distributed in the categories of art, science, law, and activism. There was even a politics category, but it was removed following objections. 

    Among the names awarded are Prof. Dr. Naci Görür, Prof. Dr. Sami Selçuk, Prof. Dr. İbrahim Kaboğlu, lawyer Rezan Epözdemir, director of the Atatürk film Mehmet Ada Öztekin, the film's lead actor Aras Bulut İynemli, musician Cem Erdost İleri, orchestra conductor Gürer Aykal, director Barış Erdenk, and the A National Women's Volleyball team. 

    It cannot be considered ethical for two professional organizations to sit at the table with a municipality and give awards to people in different categories. Just as the Tepebaşı Municipality cannot decide which journalist was successful that year, the ÇGD and TGS cannot determine the names to be awarded in fields such as law, science, and art. 

    Of course, separate juries consisting of experts in those fields could be formed for categories like science, art, and law, and awards could be given by announcing the criteria and selection method in advance. But there is no such effort here. When there is no care taken, what is done that night is not an awarding, but a plaque-giving ceremony. 

     When this is the case, Uğur Mumcu is not being commemorated; his name is being used. 

    ARE MUNICIPALITY AND CANDIDATE PRAISE ALSO PAID?

    As local elections approach, news about municipalities has suddenly increased. Of course, it is not even possible to call most of these news; almost all of them are promotions for mayors or candidates. 

    The Afyonkarahisar Municipality promotion held last month with the contribution of Hürriyet writers was six pages long. Sabah continued the promotion series by introducing the Konya Metropolitan Municipality in four full pages; it also organized a “Local Governments Summit” sponsored by 12 AKP municipalities. Akşam writers, on the other hand, went to Tuzla collectively and wrote a full-page praise for the municipality.

     In addition, pages for Bursa, Beyoğlu, Selçuklu, Konya, and Karesi Municipalities were published in Yeni Şafak; for Ordu Metropolitan Municipality in Yeni Akit; and for Selçuklu Municipality in Milliyet. In Posta’s “Fertile Cities” page, the achievements of the Denizli, Mersin’s Akdeniz, and Şanlıurfa’s Haliliye and Karaköprü municipalities were praised to the skies.

     Apart from such municipality pages that reek of advertising, columnists have also started taking municipality tours. They have suddenly started rushing to the invitations of every municipality that calls them, as if they go everywhere they are invited. 

       Some mayors or candidate nominees are also appearing on news channels for no reason. The fact that candidate nominees are brought to the screen despite having no newsworthy features creates suspicion that those programs are also paid for. If those programs are paid, at least the audience should be informed about this, and “Sponsored program” should be written on the screen. But that is not done either; and the viewers are being deceived. 

    WRITERS WATCHING MATCHES IN PRIVATE BOXES WITH WHISKEY

   “Who are the journalists who ask for necklaces from managers for their wives, and who are addicted to cheap whiskey and ask for the painting on the wall?” This was the title of the article in Yeniçağ. In this article, written under the pseudonym “the duty officer of the sports media,” it was explained that some football writers watch matches from the private boxes of club managers and businesspeople instead of the press tribune:

    “I even know the brand of whiskey the journalists drink in the boxes. Which journalist drank how many doubles, how many pistachios did they eat? How many portions of kebabs did they take from the ones coming to the box? I know it all. Because the report is on my desk.”

     The Yeniçağ writer asks, “Are you journalists or employees of the clubs? What is this sycophancy?” and also conveyed the demands of football writers who watch matches in the boxes from businesspeople:

     “Just look at the demands; some ask for a necklace for their wife’s birthday. Some want the painting in the box… Some chase after vacations, some want to get advertisements for their websites. And the people you ask for these things then tell everyone about them, you know.”

    It seems someone turned what happened in the boxes into a report and delivered it to the Yeniçağ writer, and he wrote this article. He stated that if the sports writers and other relevant parties do not explain, he would announce the names in the report after August 30. But days have passed since the article was published on January 16, and there has been no sound from either the football writers or the TSYD!

  Only Türkiye newspaper sports writer Öcal Uluç mentioned this article. In his article titled “Terrifying allegations,” Uluç emphasized that the allegations were “chilling” and called on the TSYD, the Journalists Association, and the Press Council to “investigate these allegations and do what is necessary.”

  I also support Uluç’s call; I am also waiting for photos from my colleagues of the press tribunes and those boxes. 

THAT PHOTO IS TERRORIST PROPAGANDA 

     One of the notable events of last week was a person raiding the Procter and Gamble (P&G) factory in Kocaeli and taking seven employees hostage.  

    The action lasted more than nine hours. Channels like NTV, Habertürk, CNN Türk, and A Haber did not cover the news for a long time. HalkTV, on the other hand, reported it live from the beginning. But like many news sites and TV channels, it did not give the name of the factory. From a journalistic perspective, there is no logic in hiding the company’s name. Where the action took place was an important element of the news. Because the perpetrator had chosen that factory because it was a US firm.

    The photo of the slogans related to Gaza that the perpetrator İbrahim Yeşil wrote on the wall with spray paint was also widely published on news channels and almost all newspapers. Yet this raid was an armed action, or rather a terrorist act.  

     In news about terrorist acts, “not engaging in terrorist propaganda” is of primary importance. Our colleague Zafer Arapkirli also recalled the DHKP-C’s raid on the courthouse and the taking hostage and killing of Prosecutor M. Selim Kiraz in his program on KRT TV, saying, “When broadcasting in such situations, one should avoid attitudes that could serve the terrorist’s purpose.” 

    Indeed, publishing the photo taken at the factory in Kocaeli is as wrong as publishing the photo of Prosecutor Kiraz with a gun held to his head in front of the DHKP-C flag. The fact that what the perpetrator who usurped people’s freedom in that factory wrote on the wall was related to Gaza and Palestinians does not change the situation. If that perpetrator had written PKK, Öcalan, etc., on the wall instead of Gaza, would that photo still have been published? 

    A COMPLAINT WORTHY OF EXAMPLE FROM FRANCE 

    Among the dozens of TV channels that broadcast the press conference of AKP’s Istanbul candidate Murat Kurum live from start to finish was TRT. İBB President Ekrem İmamoğlu also drew attention to this situation, stating that TRT and AA only included negative news about him. He drew attention to the injustice by saying, “The money of TRT and Anadolu Agency is paid with the money coming out of the pockets of 86 million people in this country. They are eating the public’s share.”

     Indeed, there is a problematic situation. TRT and AA are public institutions, but they act like the broadcasting organ of the AKP; they make biased broadcasts. A large part of TRT’s income consists of treasury contributions, deductions from electricity bills, and banderole fees. 

       In this case, the public resources transferred to TRT and AA should be opened to discussion in terms of both unfair competition and injustice. Not only opposition parties but also citizens and independent media organizations should follow up on this injustice. 

    Consider that public broadcasting in France cannot be compared with that in Turkey; a balance is observed between parties and political views. But the Bouygues group, which includes France’s most-watched channel TF1, filed a complaint with the European Commission against the state institution “France Télévisions” for unfair competition. The Bouygues group argues that the treasury support (2.57 million euros in 2024) given to these state channels (France 2, France 3, France 4, France 5, Franceinfo, and France.tv) “creates unfair competition” and is illegal, and that the financial support is not adequately controlled. 

    This struggle initiated by the Bouygues group in France should be taken as an example for cutting off public resources going to TRT. Because TRT is no longer a public broadcaster, but the AKP’s television. 

   CORRECTION FROM AA 

    I wrote last week that Anadolu Agency reported the text published on a fake Instagram account opened in the name of Alper Gezeravcı as “Gezeravcı’s answers.” In the program on Tele1, I also reminded that while this news was being deleted, subscribers should be warned about the mistake. 

   Friends from AA called, and while stating that they were also saddened by the mistake, they provided information that the deletion of the news was not hidden and that subscribers were warned about the mistake. That evening, while the news was being “Cancelled,” a note was passed through the same flow system: “Our news titled ‘First Turkish astronaut Gezeravcı answered questions from social media from space’ has been cancelled as it was published inadvertently.”

In one sentence:

• After the blurring of alcoholic beverage images in TV series and movies, this time the Sabah newspaper also covered the word “beer” on the bill photo in its news titled “Objection to the bill was considered unjust provocation.”
  
  
  

• In Sabah’s news titled “Disaster victims are finding their warm homes,” it was stated that a draw was held for village houses built in two neighborhoods of Hatay, but there was no information on how many houses were delivered.

• There was no signature on the news titled “What is the plight of these biography films,” which ended with a personal sentence like “Biography films being left unfinished has started to become very annoying” in Yeni Şafak.

• Yeni Akit targeted TBB President Erinç Sağkan, who took the “Islamic Law” course at Medeniyet University to the judiciary.

• Sözcü regularly followed the propaganda activities of AKP’s Muğla candidate Aydın Ayaydın and published news titled “I will not do business with the ‘I did it, it happened’ logic” and “Let’s make the projects compete.”

• Yeniçağ reported an attack by a boar on skiers with the headline “Wild boar mowed down skiers in Antalya: 7 injured,” as if a wild boar could mow down people.

• RTÜK President Ebubekir Şahin, who did not notice that the episode of “Güldür Güldür Show” about veterans was broadcast only on YouTube and not on Show TV, announced that they had “launched an investigation” regarding this broadcast - although he had no authority - by looking at the reactions on social media.

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