Beat the underdog!

Yesterday was 'May 3rd World Press Freedom Day'.

The Reporters Without Borders (RSF) organization published its 2024 World Press Freedom Index.

Turkey, which ranked 165th last year, moved up seven places this year to reach 158th place.

The report made me very happy!

I feel freer now. My colleagues must be relieved too. That's just how freedom feels.

When you move up seven places, an indescribable sense of relief washes over you. Even if you don't know how you became freer, a sense of peace fills you when the scientific data arrives…

Just as I was rejoicing that we had become 'freer,' I read the rest of the report. Seeing that Turkey continues to be in the category of countries where the situation is “very serious,” I lamented, “Hey, I was feeling so free just a moment ago.”

I was disappointed to learn that this rise was due to the worsening situation in countries that were ahead of Turkey in the index last year, such as Russia, Azerbaijan, and India.

And what do I see? The top three spots in the index are held by Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, respectively. These three countries are always at the top no matter what. Whether it's the happiest country in the world, the country with the best education, or the country with the most press freedom…

Didn't we just watch them in a series on Netflix…

Weren't these the barbaric Vikings?

And we are the descendants of the Ottomans who spread tolerance to the world and brought freedom to the countries they conquered… (We watched this in a series too, but on ATV, not Netflix)

“How did the men wearing horned helmets pass us by?” I thought!..

My faith in the report was shaken. “Could this report have been commissioned by foreign powers who want to smear us?” I asked myself.

In the World Press Freedom Index, a country's score is determined by five indicators: “political,” “security,” “economic,” “socio-cultural,” and “legal.”

The “political” indicator determines the degree of support for media independence in the face of political pressure from the state and other political actors.

Turkey was one of the countries that experienced the most serious decline in the political indicator in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region.

Actually, it doesn't really matter what rank you are in the press freedom index. What matters is society's perspective on news and journalists. Citizens in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark have prepared themselves to hear every piece of news, whether positive or negative, and they believe that accessing this information is a human right.

They also value the journalist who brings this news to them.

The situation in Turkey is not like that. With us, it is never the subject of the news, but the person who announces the news to the public, who is guilty.

It was my first years in the profession, about thirty years ago…

I was covering a shanty town demolition as a reporter. First, the neighborhood residents threw stones at the municipal teams to prevent them from demolishing their shanties.

When we filmed this, the residents went crazy.

They attacked the journalists, shouting, “Don't film, you jerks!” Then, law enforcement applied disproportionate force to the residents. The same residents who had just attacked us shouting “Don't film, you jerks!” now looked to the press for help, shouting, “What are you waiting for? Film this disgrace!”

Of course, law enforcement beat us even more than they beat the residents because we were filming the intervention.

Then the municipal teams started the demolition. Perhaps having been inspired by both the residents and the law enforcement, they also attacked us. There came a moment when everyone was beating us!

In Turkey, a journalist can't please anyone. A businessman is caught with his mistress, his bodyguards attack the journalist. A footballer has an accident, he attacks the journalist. A journalist criticizes the mayor, his men have the journalist shot. A journalist who uncovers a corruption file is a puppet of foreign powers and is arrested. A bomb is placed in their car, they are murdered on their way to their newspaper…

As you can see, press freedom has nothing to do with just the government or anything like that. In Turkey, no one likes news, no one likes a free journalist.

When the practice of journalism and the public's right to obtain reliable, independent, and pluralistic information also face political pressure, everyone beats the underdog.

In short, journalists in this country have faced problems in every era, not just the last twenty years. The public, which does not stand up for journalists who are imprisoned, pressured, or fired from their jobs due to the news they report, has received only as much real news as it deserves.

There is no other profession in Turkey that is as humiliated as journalism. While the smuggler is a gentleman, and the fraudster or tax evader is a businessman, the journalist is always seen as a liar, a manipulator, or someone's hitman. If even murderers, tax evaders, drug lords, rapists, and thieves don't receive as much punishment as journalists, then practicing journalism in this country is more dangerous than working on a construction site without a hard hat…

Furthermore, if the public has no tolerance for news that contradicts their own views, how can the authority have any?

You see it on social media; colleagues who report news outside of their own views are met with unspeakable curses, insults, and accusations…

And it's not one-sided either… People from every view and every social status do this.

A married man is caught with an escort and says it's a “press trap.” He defrauds the institution he works for and says, “The news published intentionally in the press is a lie. It's character assassination.”

He curses and says, “The press twisted my words.”

No matter what rank we are in the Press Freedom Index, the only way to reach the truth is to respect the journalist and try to understand their news impartially.

If you do not leave the real journalist free, the jackals who pretend to be journalists will indeed commit the crimes you accuse them of. They will set traps, write lies, and commit character assassination. And one day, that boomerang will wound you too.