The reign of the bosses' wives

A "reign of the bosses' wives" has now begun in the media. Last year, we wrote about how Revna Demirören, the wife of Demirören Media owner Yıldırım Demirören, blocked the news regarding the accident involving Eylem Tok's son. Now, we have heard the thunderous intervention of Aslıhan Yeltekin Ören, the wife of İhlas Holding Chairman of the Board Mücahid Ören, at the TGRT News Center.

The WhatsApp correspondence of Aslıhan Ören, who became the Media Group President by virtue of her marriage, was revealed by Metin Cihan on X; it also became news in many places. That correspondence is very sad for the sake of journalism.

The boss's wife rains down instructions from on high: "No negative character generator (KJ) text, it will not be written," "Is there another boss I don't know about?", "Those who want to do it can resign," "Final warning." She also threatens, saying, "Go ahead, let someone give what I've written here to someone else now."

TGRT News Editor-in-Chief Ercan Seki responds with, "Very well, Ms. Aslıhan," "We are correcting this immediately," and "More attention will be paid"; the news is immediately removed from the broadcast. What angered the lady so much was the news story: "The number of child laborers has increased. Poverty is forcing children to work."

I asked Ercan Seki, who had that correspondence with Aslıhan Ören, about this incident; he gave exactly this response:

1) The news in question about child laborers was broadcast on TGRT Main News.

2) I am the one who personally approved the preparation and broadcast of the news.

3) Every institution has an editorial policy, and news must be in accordance with this policy.

4) If tense moments occur during a busy agenda, the duty of the manager is to lower the tension and ensure workplace peace.

5) TGRT News is the most peaceful and, in an editorial sense, the freest news channel.”

I do not agree with Ercan Seki. Of course, every organization has an editorial policy. But in journalism, news cannot be categorized as negative or positive. Journalism cannot be done by only reporting "positive" news and trying to portray the country as a bed of roses. A journalist does not filter the facts, even if they are painful; they report them even if they are negative. Our red line is not "workplace peace," but the facts.

The real issue is that the boss's wife is at the head of the editorial process, raining down instructions on journalists in an unbecoming tone. We understand that the boss's wife has established a reign at TGRT News, and editorial independence has been effectively eliminated... That is what was exposed by those correspondences...

The story of a headline being spiked

On April 28, the provincial edition of the newspaper Nefes featured the headline: "They tore up the olive groves and planted concrete instead." The spot right below the headline read: "TOKİ, as if there were no other place left, tore up century-old olive groves in Hatay Dikmece and built earthquake housing in their place. Earthquake survivors say, 'We have neither our land nor our hope left.' A nature massacre is officially taking place."

The news story, which covered more than half of the front page, bore the "Nefes Exclusive News" logo, and it was clear from the photos that reporter Dilan Kutlu and photojournalist Selahattin Sönmez had gone to the region specifically for this story.

However, this story was spiked—or rather, "flown"—in the city edition. The headline of the Nefes newspaper distributed in cities on April 28 featured the story: "According to the Minister, there were no primary schools 20 years ago." The story about Minister of National Education Yusuf Tekin, which was at the bottom in the provincial edition, had been moved to the headline.

In journalism, it is understandable to scrap a headline from early editions and redo it if a striking story comes in later. But here, an existing story is moved to the top, and the exclusive story that was on the headline is not even moved to the bottom; it is completely deleted, destroyed. The story on the website is also removed!

Interestingly, five days later, Nefes used ANKA's story, "Expropriation crisis in Samandağ: Intervention against the neighborhood residents," on its website. In fact, this also concerned the reaction to expropriation in Samandağ, just like the spiked Dikmece story, but the companies were different.

No explanation was provided, but a change like the spiking of the "They tore up the olive groves and planted concrete instead" headline can only happen through interference in the editorial process. Because such a story, which has no possibility of being refuted or its content turning out to be false, can only be removed by influential people who are angered by the news or whose interests are affected by it.

Moreover, Nefes, published with the slogan "As long as we breathe, there is always hope," is an opposition newspaper. The fact that they destroyed a headline that might disturb the government or perhaps some companies, and that stood up for earthquake survivors, due to non-journalistic concerns, cast a shadow over their critical journalism efforts.

A relationship deepened by a stabbed knife

I read it, and I read it again. The sentence in the newspaper Posta, "The great spark in the relationship, which deepened with the knife Nisan stabbed into Eşref, reached its peak with the kiss in the park," took me aback.

The title of the text, which featured a photo of actors Demet Özdemir and Çağatay Ulusoy kissing, was "First Kiss." They started with the "spark" created by the kiss and ended at the "peak"! It is one thing for a kiss to ignite a spark or bring a relationship to a peak, but how does "the knife Nisan stabbed into Eşref" deepen the relationship? That is exactly what I didn't understand. If I were to call it praise for violence or normalizing violence, it wouldn't even be that; it's just absurd.

The purpose of these flashy sentences was to promote the series titled "Eşref Rüya" on Kanal D, one of the Demirören group's television channels. When the goal is to get ratings, conservatism is forgotten, as is the amorphous imposition they call "general morality."

It was presented as news, but the text looked more like it came from the hand of an advertiser than a journalist. I wish they had read it again after writing it and added a "This is an advertisement" warning...

How is a slip of the tongue corrected?

The pro-government media loved the sentence by CHP Chairman Özgür Özel at the Mersin rally: "The name that will bring that peace is our presidential candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu, who watches us from his dungeon in Silivri, from his tiny phone in his room, with his big heart."

A Haber published stories like "Özgür Özel revealed it! İmamoğlu smuggled a phone into prison," Akşam with "Özgür Özel's phone revelation! Does he want to get rid of Ekrem İmamoğlu?", Yeni Akit with "Özgür Özel confessed: Ekrem smuggled a phone into prison," Haber7 with "A confession from Özgür Özel that puts İmamoğlu in a difficult spot," Takvim with "Phone revelation," and Türkiye with "Özgür Özel revealed the phone in Silivri."

However, it is impossible to smuggle even a pen or a flower into the prison in Silivri, let alone a phone. The wards are also searched frequently. Furthermore, it is known that there is a television in İmamoğlu's ward. Besides, Özgür Özel was talking about "watching from a phone," not talking or writing on a phone.

Despite these facts, writing as if İmamoğlu is using a mobile phone in prison is not a well-intentioned attitude. Of course, there is also a mistake by the CHP here; they didn't even make a statement like "it was a slip of the tongue." But they corrected that sentence on the party's website to "...watching from the tiny television in his room with his big heart..." and published it.

The opposition media either did not see this sentence or reported it by correcting it to "from his television." Correcting a political party leader's words in the text without explaining the reason is another problem.

Who asked that softball question?

The functions of those who accompany President Erdoğan on his foreign trips on the presidential plane are now known to everyone. But a question asked to Erdoğan upon his return from Italy showed that the bar for partisanship is being raised higher and higher:

"CHP Chairman Özgür Özel, unfortunately, does not refrain from cooperating even with illegal organizations to cover up and manipulate the corruption allegations in the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, and attempting acts that could be considered crimes in a legal sense, especially violating commercial law. How do you evaluate this dangerous trend that threatens internal security, and even national security?"

If a person carrying the identity of a "journalist" can ask such a softball question that contains such judgment, is far from objectivity, and recognizes no boundaries of professional distance, their name should also be disclosed, and who they are should be known.

However, let alone the name of the person asking such a question, in most of the news in the media, the questions themselves were not even there. In the text on the Communications Directorate's page, the questions had also been filtered out.

The desire to hide the facilitation provided by softball questions is an understandable situation. Because it is the Communications Directorate that directs those journalists. Barış Terkoğlu, who followed the trail of Özgür Özel's speech in Başakşehir, exposed it by sharing the note sent to AKP members and journalists participating in TV programs. Fahrettin Altun could not deny that note either. In his statement, he argued that they were trying to "create a secure media ecosystem" and were fighting for "the truth," but that note contained directions such as "tell them," "don't hesitate," "criminalize," and "keep it on the agenda," rather than "information."

The civil servants and journalists of the single-party era are at work...

He hadn't forgotten his wife on the bus

The news titled "He forgot his wife of 45 years on the bus" was reported by DHA and İHA. A Haber, NTV, Halk TV, Tele1, Haberler, Haber7, EnsonHaber, as well as Cumhuriyet, Milliyet, Nefes, Türkiye, and Sözcü also published this news with the same headline.

However, when you read the news, you realize that in the incident in Bursa, 75-year-old Hasan Akgül did not forget his wife on the bus; while he was getting off the bus at the stop, his wife could not get off before the bus moved due to the crowd. The woman had already gotten off at the next stop and come back. That was all that happened.

The editors of the media organizations that used the news from DHA and İHA could not have failed to notice this inconsistency between the headline and the news. By using that headline exactly as it was, they became partners in the "clickbait" trap that DHA and İHA set to make the news attractive.

Those who deceive the reader and the viewer together forget that journalism is a marathon. It is difficult to gain reliability and credibility; but it is very easy to lose them. Once you lose a reader or viewer who realizes they have been deceived, you cannot get them back.

In a single sentence:

• On the day Akşam, Türkiye, Yeni Akit, and Yeni Şafak published Minister of Transport Uraloğlu's words, "We will definitely build Kanal İstanbul," Sabah only reported on Minister Murat Kurum's speech; it did not see Uraloğlu at all.

• Yeni Şafak deleted the section "at the Le Meridien Hotel belonging to Adnan Çebi, who received the metro construction tender from the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality" in the news "They covered the cameras with tape" on the internet.

• In Odatv's news titled "Funeral program for Sırrı Süreyya Önder has been set," it was written that "No clear information has been shared yet about the funeral program," and the reader was being deceived.

• THY took a group of journalists from Hürriyet, Posta, Türkiye, and Yeni Şafak to Japan for the Osaka Expo Fair; they wrote the statement of Chairman of the Board Ahmet Bolat without asking about THY's 1.8 billion loss last year.

• Yeni Şafak published the promotional text of Konya Metropolitan Mayor İbrahim Altay, and Akşam published the promotional text of Bursa Yıldırımlar Municipality without adding a "This is an advertisement" warning.

• Cumhuriyet did not cite Now TV and Alican Uludağ as sources in its news, "İmamoğlu's diploma is still valid on e-Devlet."

• Sözcü did not state that the information in the news "They also seized the money in the child's piggy bank" was taken from the article by Nefes newspaper writer Soner Yalçın.

• The content of the news in Sabah with the headline "Heartless people called compensation for Tunahan 'waste'" contradicted the headline; no one from the Ankara Metropolitan Municipality said "waste," only the lawyer was expressing his own opinion.

• In Sözcü's news, "Boycotts worked; huge loss at McDonald's," there was no data that the reason for the loss was the boycott; the word boycott did not even appear once.

• The pro-government media ignored the protests of Limak and TOKİ workers; the opposition media did not report on the workers fired from Çiğli Municipality setting off for Ankara.

• In addition to private companies, Halkbank, Vakıfbank, Ziraat Bankası, Borsa İstanbul, Türk Telekom, and THY sponsored the "Istanbul Natural Resources Summit" organized by Sabah.

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