The right of celebrities not to be tarnished

In reports regarding the “poison raid on famous venues,” it was announced that actor Can Yaman was also detained on charges of “using drugs and stimulants.” Newspapers such as Akşam, Hürriyet, Milliyet, and Sözcü, as well as news sites like Ülke TV, Ensonhaber, Haberler, and İnternethaber, stated that drugs were found on Can Yaman.

However, Can Yaman was released the next morning and immediately flew to Italy, where he has lived for years. After arriving there, he addressed the “Italian press,” saying, “Do not fall into the trap of copy-pasting news coming from the Bosphorus.” Denying the reports that he was caught with drugs, he said, “If it were true, I would not have been released in such a short time and been able to return to Italy the next day.”

Indeed, Barış Terkoğlu from Cumhuriyet also wrote that the police searched Can Yaman twice that night but did not find any drugs, yet he was still detained on the instructions of the prosecutor's office.

The Chief Public Prosecutor's Office's statement regarding the operation, which included the phrase “seven suspects deemed to have committed the crimes of possessing drugs or stimulants and facilitating the use of drugs,” cast suspicion on Can Yaman as well. However, this statement cannot be a justification for the reports that drugs were found on Can Yaman.

Clearly, the police, the prosecutor's office, or someone else leaked this false (or lying) information to journalists. The Chief Public Prosecutor's Office could have corrected this error with a new statement, but they did not.

More importantly, journalists should have investigated and verified the information before writing it. Especially after Can Yaman was released a few hours later without even a judicial control decision, they were expected to be suspicious of what they had written and make an effort to correct the error. They did not do that either. In fact, most did not correct or update the false news even after Barış Terkoğlu's article.

Unfortunately, there is an indifference in the media, just as in the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office, regarding the right of celebrities not to be tarnished. The journalistic principle that “a suspect or defendant should not be declared guilty until a judicial decision is finalized” has long been forgotten. A single statement is more than enough for famous names who are detained to be instantly branded with prostitution, drugs, and immorality.

For example, based on the statements of social media celebrities Selen Görgüzel and Rabia Karaca, many people, from singer Emel Müftüoğlu to volleyball player Derya Çayırgan, were portrayed as guilty in the news. However, Rabia Karaca was also accusing Oktay Kaynarca in her statement.

While Turkuvaz Media, led by Sabah, put Emel Müftüoğlu at the forefront in their “2 more suspects arrested” reports, Oktay Kaynarca's name was squeezed in and glossed over. But when the test came back negative, they did the exact opposite. In Sabah, the news “Oktay Kaynarca's drug test came back negative” was published; similarly, there was no mention of Müftüoğlu, whose test also came back negative.

This is a ruthless attitude. It is beyond shameful to protect Oktay Kaynarca just because he hosts the program “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” on ATV, while branding Emel Müftüoğlu and other celebrities.

The importance of impartiality in journalism is clearer in such situations. Protecting some with the same statements while showing others as convicted is incompatible with journalism. There is no distinction between famous and non-famous regarding the right not to be tarnished.

WHAT HAPPENED TO IMAMOGLU'S PLANE?

For days, the pro-government media has been reporting extensively on what happened on a private plane within the framework of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IBB) investigation. Unfortunately, truths and falsehoods are mixed in these reports.

For example, it was written and said that the plane in question “belonged to Ekrem İmamoğlu.” However, the plane had been rented by a businessman named Murat Gülibrahimoğlu, who is still a fugitive, and Veysel Demirci, a businessman close to the AKP who owns the private jet, denied the allegations that İmamoğlu had boarded that plane.

Indeed, the Türkiye newspaper ran the headline “Phenomenon exposes scandals on İmamoğlu's jet” on January 15. The next day, on the front page of the same Türkiye newspaper, the story “We spoke with the former owner of the 'Ghost Jet': We don't know who rented it” appeared. Well, what happened to “İmamoğlu's jet”?

Of course, no correction was published... It seems we will have to wait for the judicial process to understand what is real and what is disinformation, just as in the Ergenekon process...

WAS TRT'S 16TH CHANNEL NECESSARY?

TRT has so many television channels that it is hard to remember them all. I looked at the TRT page, and there are exactly 15 TV channels listed:

“TRT 1, TRT 2, TRT Haber, TRT Spor, TRT Spor Yıldız, TRT Belgesel, TRT eba, TRT Çocuk, TRT Diyanet Çocuk, TRT Müzik, TRT Arabi, TRT Avaz, TRT Kurdî, TRT Türk, TRT World.”

TRT is not satisfied with this now; it has also launched the TRT Gençlik (Youth) channel. TRT General Manager M. Zahid Sobacı explained at the ceremony why such a channel was needed:

“Our channel is a strategic initiative that stands against the hedonistic mentality and dark circles that haunt the hearts and minds of our youth through certain digital media, with content that is clean, safe, suitable for human nature, and centers on family and national values.”

You would think that all of TRT's channels are doing effective “public service broadcasting” and are receiving great interest and high viewership. However, the viewership ratings of TRT channels are very low; only TRT 1's rating can exceed 1 percent.

Furthermore, TRT maintains a pro-government broadcasting line; it broadcasts programs containing discrimination and hate speech. The TRT Tabii documentary titled “Rainbow Fascism,” which compares “LGBTI+ individuals to a rainbow-colored elephant breaking everything in a glass room” and targets homosexuals, is the latest example of such programs.

Moreover, while television stations are subject to RTÜK (Radio and Television Supreme Council) supervision, TRT is exempt from these audits. As such, it is unclear how billions are spent on so many TV channels. TRT is not a transparent institution either.

Just think, it was announced that President Erdoğan “performed the opening of the TRT Genç channel with a remote control brought by 'Robo Genç,' developed by Turkish engineers.” But in fact, that robot was the “G1 humanoid robot from the China-based Unitree Robotics.” The company's website stated that the starting price was 13,500 dollars.

The TRT management, which can present a Chinese robot as domestic and spend thousands of dollars on a robot just for an opening, is now talking about clean and safe broadcasting. First, there must be transparency and real “public service broadcasting.” Otherwise, TRT Genç will be nothing more than a new “channel” to provide positions and status to some people and transfer money to external productions.

KELEBEK DENIED ITSELF

A news story titled “Her lover didn't take her with him in her gold outfit... She had shouted her love from the stage just last week” was published on the website of Hürriyet's magazine supplement, Kelebek.

The story described how Timothee Chalamet, who was chosen as “best actor” at the Golden Globe awards for his performance in the film “Marty Supreme,” did not walk the red carpet with his girlfriend Kylie Jenner. It was also reported that British body language expert Judi James interpreted this situation by saying, “Chalamet did not want to bring his relationship to the forefront.”

However, according to the US media, “Jenner had entered the ceremony area directly in her gold-colored dress, but they looked happier and more in love with each other than ever.”

Since the Kelebek reporters did not watch the ceremony and did not speak with the body language expert, the news was quoted from somewhere. But the source was not cited in the news either. Stealing news from here and there and publishing it as if they had watched it themselves is the plagiarism habit of the digital age...

Furthermore, Hürriyet, which wrote “..her lover didn't take her with him,” published a “Golden Globe romance” story at the top of its front page one day later. Under the romantic photo where the duo looked at each other with love, it read, “Chalamet celebrated the award with his girlfriend Kylie Jenner.”

So, the interpretation that “Chalamet did not want to bring his relationship to the forefront” was not true! Thus, Kelebek had corrected its news from the day before and denied itself. Of course, they were doing this denial implicitly, without feeling the need to explain it to their readers.

WELL, WHY DID THEY PLACE THOSE ORDERS?

First, DHA reported, “400 orders arrived at his house in 20 days! The doorbell is ringing constantly: 'We will deal with you for the rest of your life'.” It was stated that 400 food orders were placed to the house of a person named Ersan Yalçuva living in Bursa in the last 20 days, and that police, ambulances, and transgender individuals were sent.

When news sites and television stations showed great interest, İHA continued the event with the news “False report and order nightmare in Bursa... His close friends were also targeted.” The new element added by İHA was that food orders were also sent to the homes of his “close friends.”

However, in both reports, the answers to the questions “Why?” and “Who?” were missing. In the DHA report, there was a clue about this in the form of “people calling from different numbers saying 'We will deal with you for the rest of your life'.” But who were these people and why were they so angry; there was not even a clue about this in the news, let alone information.

Although it was published days later, there was no information in the İHA report about who did these things and why, nor was there any information about how Ersan Yalçuva identified his friends by phone and had food ordered to their homes as well.

Yet, if someone is getting angry and trying to punish this person with orders, shouldn't there be a reason? An event that happened before...

It seems that the reporters who wrote both stories did not see the need to dig into what was told and believed it immediately. They did not look for answers to the “Why” and “Who” questions; they accepted what this person told them as true and complete from the start. There is not a single question they directed to this person in the news.

Unfortunately, the DHA and İHA editors also put it into service without realizing that the 5W1H (Who, What, Where, When, Why, How) of the news was missing. And that's how the news was published. However, there is no journalism in this half-baked news; there is only the relaying that artificial intelligence could also do...

When you forget skepticism and a critical perspective, there is no journalism left.

In one sentence:

In the reports by Anadolu Agency, Hürriyet, Dünya, Milliyet, Türkiye, and Sözcü that “Sabancı Holding suspended the mining project in İntikamtepe,” the information that this decision was taken after Cumhuriyet's “They are erasing our history” report and the reactions was missing.

Despite the provision of the Press Law that “no publication shall be made that reveals the identities of crime perpetrators or victims under the age of 18” and the journalistic principles in the same direction, Hürriyet published a photo of the child perpetrator with his face visible in its headline “Never forget Atlas.”

The Ensonhaber site used an image of Yassıada instead of İmralı island in its “DEM Delegation on İmralı” report.

The CHP-run Bursa Metropolitan Municipality announced the “700th anniversary of the conquest events” with an advertisement disguised as news given to the Milliyet newspaper.

Azadiya Welat (Freedom of the Homeland), a Kurdish newspaper that was one of the newspapers closed by Decree-Law (KHK) in 2016 after the coup attempt, has started to be published again after a 10-year hiatus.

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