Mustafa Mutlu draws a comparison between Altun and Beki! 'Media executives allowed these pressures'
Korkusuz newspaper columnist Mustafa Mutlu criticized Ertuğrul Özkök's claims regarding the intervention of Presidential Communications Director Fahrettin Altun, comparing the pressures on the media with past examples. Mutlu stated that the former Hürriyet Editor-in-Chief remained unresponsive to interventions he experienced in the past, and directed harsh criticism at those who paved the way for similar pressures today.
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Former Hürriyet Editor-in-Chief Ertuğrul Özkök brought to the agenda the claim that Presidential Communications Director Fahrettin Altun demanded that HTS be called a "terrorist organization" during a live broadcast on Ahmet Hakan's program.
Altun's intervention with Hakan has sparked a debate regarding the pressures exerted on the media.
Addressing this issue in his column, Korkusuz newspaper writer Mustafa Mutlu used the following expressions:
Former Hürriyet Editor-in-Chief Ertuğrul Özkök has made a claim regarding Presidential Communications Director Fahrettin Altun...
Fahrettin Altun allegedly called the CNN Türk control room directly while Ahmet Hakan's program was airing live...
He wanted the term "Terrorist" to be used when referring to HTS. But when Ahmet Hakan continued to just say HTS, he called again.
When the control room warned Ahmet Hakan once more, he got angry and snapped, "Fine, fine. We get it. We will call HTS a terrorist organization"...
Good heavens, Ertuğrul Bey... Anyone listening would think you aren't used to these kinds of interventions...
Tell the truth, when you were the Editor-in-Chief of Hürriyet, how many times a day did Akif Beki, who was the Prime Minister's Press Advisor at the time, call you to scold you, demand that you fire writers, or offer headline suggestions?
Did you resist even one of those interventions?
What Akif Beki did back then, Fahrettin Altun is doing today, and you are acting like a "naive and virtuous young girl" who has been harassed, whining, "Oh, can this really happen?"
It can...
Because you and the media executives of that era allowed it.
You didn't expose those who exerted this pressure and make it impossible for them to show their faces in public!
Akif Beki, who intervened in your work back then, is working as a programmer on an opposition channel today and criticizing the government he was once a part of.
Who knows, one day we might see Fahrettin Altun in the opposition media too.
This is Turkey; anything can happen here because of spineless people like you!
Our columnist's article yesterday was published incompletely due to a technical error. For this reason, we are republishing the relevant section of the article.