They even made an exaggerated news story about his villa

Expecting an apology from Yeni Akit is a pipe dream, but their defense was not really a defense either. Giving the headline "...Zeyrek struck" to the news that CHP Manisa Metropolitan Mayor Ferdi Zeyrek was taken to intensive care following an electric shock cannot be explained as "sticking to the truth," as A. İhsan Karahasanoğlu claims.

It is clear that by using the headline "struck" instead of "electric shock"—a word whose meaning in Turkish is known to everyone—they intended to create negative connotations about Zeyrek. If that were not the case, they would not have also published a story titled "Value 350 million liras: The luxury villa where the CHP mayor was struck has been imaged" for a person fighting for his life in the hospital. That story was malicious enough to not even see a problem in attributing an exaggerated value to the villa.

As Karahasanoğlu said, it is not true that the phrase "it was learned that he croaked" was used in Yeni Akit's report. Indeed, someone on social media may have created a montage. I checked as well, and I did not find any data indicating that such expressions were used in the report. But the fact that it was a montage does not absolve Yeni Akit of what they wrote about Ferdi Zeyrek.

Yeni Akit is a publication that, let alone being conscientious toward a person in the hospital, normalizes insults, humiliation, discrimination, and even hate speech against everyone it perceives as an opponent. Yesterday, they wrote "whiny" for the CHP and "weathercock" for CHP deputy Cemal Enginyurt.

What is significant is that not even one person with a conscience from the pro-government media has come forward to criticize this attitude of Yeni Akit...

THE "BEFORE THE EYES OF HIS CHILDREN" CLICHÉ

The same mistake was repeated in the reports about "a father being punched in front of his children on the Marmaray." When news is made without asking, without investigating, without looking at the context of the short clips shared on social media, and without talking to the parties involved, things get messy.

However, the veteran journalist who filmed the footage on the metro is Fuat Kozluklu from TRT Haber. With a journalistic reflex, he started filming the argument, and when the punch was thrown, he shared the footage on social media, writing, "The argument that started with the reaction of a father traveling with his two children on the Marmaray to a woman standing at the door turned into a fistfight." He must have thought it was an ordinary scene of violence in Turkey and could not have predicted it would grow this much, so he did not write about the incident in detail.

But still, instead of asking Kozluklu, who could have been reached within minutes, the media based their reports on reactions on social media. Most media outlets, including İHA and DHA, did not even cite Kozluklu as a source. In fact, it was written on the TRT Haber website that "the footage of the incident was recorded by a passenger."

Kozluklu also made a new post a day later, after the footage spread and reactions against the man who threw the punch rose, and conveyed what happened before and after the punch. The man with the children had been grumbling for minutes, the young woman who was disturbed had cried, and that was why the argument broke out.

The man who was punched in the nose also attacked the "blue-shirted" young man when he got off at the station. However, only after these came to light did journalists focus on what happened before the punch. They stopped talking only to the "father" and spoke to that young woman and the "blue-shirted" man.

Of course, a father being punched in front of his children and the children being traumatized is never acceptable. But presenting violence packaged like this with "fatherhood" and "being punched in front of his children" prevents us from seeing the essence of it.

Moreover, these "in front of his children" and "before the eyes of his children" headlines have become clichés. I encounter reports such as "He killed his wife before the eyes of his children and waited by her side" (Haberler.com), "Attack on female driver in front of her children" (İHA), "Woman going to the park beaten in front of her children" (Milliyet), "Acquittal for the attacker who shot his wife before the eyes of their children in Bursa" (Ensonhaber) very often.

If I were to try to scan, I could find hundreds of headlines written with this cliché. When it is used so often, one cannot help but ask: does violence only carry news value when it happens before the eyes of children? Does violence only become our problem when it happens in the presence of children?

If there is information about the effect of violence on children or a development regarding children, then fine, it becomes an element of the news; this information is of course given in the report. But let us stop using this "in the presence of children" cliché in every news story about violence.

Violence is bad even if it is not before the eyes of children; it must be condemned. Even if his children were not with him on the Marmaray, it was wrong for that man to be punched. We are in a worrying situation regarding violence, primarily in the media...

İZMİR STRIKE HELD A MIRROR TO POLARIZATION

The seven-day strike of municipal workers in İzmir held a mirror to the polarization in the media; the majority of media outlets, both pro-government and opposition, aligned themselves not with the truth but with their party.

The pro-government media was clear throughout the strike. Since the strike was in a CHP-run municipality, they suddenly forgot that they do not object to the government's constant strike bans; they turned into union-loving journalists.

Akşam, Sabah, Türkiye, and Yeni Şafak put headlines like "Garbage mountains took İzmir hostage," "Garbage mountains are rising," and "Garbage on the streets, queues at the stops" on their front pages throughout the strike. Along with AA, pro-government TV channels like TRT Haber and AHaber also produced similar reports.

In between, they published reports directly targeting CHP İzmir Metropolitan Mayor Cemil Tugay, such as "CHP mayor threatened the worker," "Mayor Tugay is pitting the union against the public instead of solving the crisis," "CHP municipality could not even reach an agreement with DİSK," and "'Garbage' fight over labor." When an agreement was reached, they downplayed the strike news or did not cover it at all. It was noteworthy that Hürriyet and Milliyet produced straight news about the strike instead of taking sides like the others.

The opposition media, on the other hand, presented a fragmented picture. Evrensel took a stance in favor of the workers from the first day to the last. On the second day of the strike, while no one else was reporting, Evrensel said, "Collective bargaining, not charity"; then it ran the headline "Lies and truths in the İzmir strike"; and it concluded the news it gave on the front page on the last day by saying, "CBA signed in İzmir with pressure and provocation."

BirGün also supported the union with reports such as "Equal pay for equal work strike," "Inequality is unacceptable," and "CBA on the table on the 6th day." But at the same time, it did not refrain from publishing the municipality's offer and views. Aziz Çelik's article "Equal pay for equal work strike" also explained in detail that the real reason for the strike stemmed from the difference in the contract the municipality made with a union affiliated with Türk-İş.

The needle of Cumhuriyet, which put the developments regarding the strike on its front page, was pointing toward the CHP. In reports like "New offer from Tugay to workers" and "The people of İzmir will also do the math," it not only highlighted the municipality's offer but also published Mayor Tugay's garbage collection, which the union described as "strike-breaking," in a positive light as "Mayor Tugay took to the streets."

In any case, the litmus test for the opposition media was the reports about Tugay collecting garbage. Gazete Pencere and Karar newspapers, as well as Halk TV and Tele1 channels, reported Tugay's garbage collection and the criticism of strike-breaking together.

However, Mayor Tugay did not even want to hear these criticisms. His outburst to İnan Demirel, who reminded him of this criticism on the program on Tele1, saying, "What kind of talk is this, man? What does strike-breaking mean? Correct your expressions," showed how tense his nerves were. But this unfair outburst by Tugay against the journalist did not receive the necessary attention in the opposition media.

Nefes and Sözcü were at the forefront of those supporting Tugay unconditionally. Nefes took Tugay's side by saying, "The mayor rolled up his sleeves in İzmir, where there is a strike," and Sözcü by saying, "The mayor collected garbage when the workers went on strike because they didn't like the 65 thousand lira salary offered." In fact, Nefes published reports smearing the union with headlines like "He hired 58 relatives, including his wife, at the municipality," and Sözcü with "The union that went on strike in İzmir finding the 30 percent raise offered by the CHP municipality too little, signed for a zero raise with the MHP municipality in Kırklareli."

When an agreement was reached, Sözcü also wrote, "Yılmaz Özdil's findings on Sözcü TV paved the way for the agreement," and embraced Özdil's anti-union stance. From the first day, Özdil had opposed the strike by calling it a "yellow union" and a "political game," and had used discriminatory, condescending expressions.

Unfortunately, there were other opposition journalists who were anti-worker and anti-union who made posts like Özdil during the strike process. But Miyase İlknur's article in Cumhuriyet, "You are a garbage collector, stay a garbage collector," was a clear response given to such approaches without beating around the bush.

Of course, DİSK's inability to organize in AKP-run municipalities and its inability to hold strikes there can be debated; its attitude in İzmir can also be criticized, but the priority should have been to understand the reason for the dispute between the union and the municipality and the attitude of both sides, and to explain it in an objective language.

Without knowledge, neither analysis nor interpretation can be made. As Uğur Mumcu said, "One cannot have an opinion without having knowledge." A journalist should be different from a citizen talking back and forth on the street...

In one sentence:

Hürriyet internet distorted the news about the statement of a person named Servet Yıldırım by writing "He benefited from effective remorse in the corruption investigation into the IMM / His statement emerged" over a photo of Ekrem İmamoğlu, as if İmamoğlu had benefited from effective remorse.

MHP Chairman Bahçeli's description of Abdullah Öcalan as a "founding leader" was ignored by MHP's publication Türkgün and the pro-government media; Akşam went even further and published Bahçeli's words by distorting them as "leader of the separatist terrorist organization."

Sözcü published the news as "Female pilot made an emergency landing," but the accident had nothing to do with the pilot being a woman; indeed, Yeni Şafak published it with the headline "Training plane crashed on landing."

Türkiye and Yeni Şafak did not include the municipality's statement that "IHH offered the refund of the aid money that could not be delivered to Gaza" in their reports titled "CHP Adıyaman Municipality asked for the Gaza donation back."

Sabah and AHaber, which do not write the names of judges in judicial news, targeted the judges who decided to apply to the Constitutional Court (AYM) for the cancellation of the law regarding the appointment of a trustee in the Ahmet Özer case by giving their names in the "Scandalous decision" report.

Cumhuriyet's report, "World universities ranked, there is no single Turkish university in the top 500," lacked the information that the newly announced URAP research was conducted in March.

İdris Saruhan and Fatma Demircioğlu Parlar from Yeni Şafak, Abdülhakim Arvas from Türkiye, and Barış Savaş from Sabah went on Hajj with the organization of the Presidency of Religious Affairs.

As July approaches, news sites accelerated deceptive headlines again such as "Will there be an interim raise for the minimum wage?" (Habertürk / NTV), "Lobby information leaked" (Milli Gazete), "Officially Announced: Lump-sum raise for retirees, interim raise for minimum wage" (Kamuhaberson).

Türk Telekom, under the Turkey Wealth Fund, continued to fund the pro-government media by giving full-page Eid al-Adha advertisements to 15 newspapers.

Sabah's headline "Lion ate German businessman" was wrong; as stated in the report, the businessman lost his life due to a "fatal bite the lion made to his neck."

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