Sabah also ignored its fugitive columnist

I wrote last week that Hürriyet ignored the arrest of its magazine columnist Cihan Şensözlü in a drug operation. It turns out that Sabah also completely ignored its columnist Mert Vidinli, for whom an arrest warrant was issued in the same operation; I had missed that.

Mert Vidinli, who is accused of "encouraging and mediating prostitution" like his close friend Cihan Şensözlü, was writing for Sabah's Saturday supplement. His last column on December 13, 2025, was titled "Trends are now determined by 10-second videos."

Sabah included Vidinli's name among those for whom detention orders were issued in its December 19 report titled "Drug scandal grows," and among the "seven suspects whose assets were seized" on January 1, but in both reports, it did not mention that he was a Sabah columnist. Sabah, which did not shy away from publishing Şensözlü's photograph and his statement to the prosecutor's office, also did not write that he was a Hürriyet columnist.

There was no support from the columnists in the Günaydın and Cumartesi supplements either; they also ignored Vidinli. In fact, Mevlüt Tezel, in his column "Does the public fall for these tricks?", criticized the "spiritual messages" shared from abroad by the fugitive Şeyma Subaşı and Şevval Şahin. Yet Vidinli, who is also abroad, was also making posts and statements, which he ignored.

Tuba Kalçık also called out, "Women journalists, women's associations, the feminist crowd, where are you?" by saying, "The allegations of pressure and harassment at Habertürk are grave." She did not even mention Vidinli's name.

Sabah, like Hürriyet, probably thinks that if they don't write about it, people won't find out. In this age, it is impossible for the news that their columnists are accused of drugs and prostitution not to be heard.

Attempting to hide the obvious truth from their readers will only make the mistake even bigger. Of course, the judiciary will decide whether they are guilty or not; but they cannot so quietly escape the responsibility of having people who are far from journalistic ethics and who have different conflict-of-interest relationships in the entertainment industry write for the newspaper.

Like Hürriyet, Sabah executives should also explain how and why they approved the infiltration of such people into the media, who damage the reputation and credibility of journalism, and they should apologize...

Journalism that surrenders to Trump's language

The linguistic construction of news requires knowledge, experience, skill, and care. The words a journalist uses are the building blocks of the news. News whose linguistic construction cannot harmonize with its content and is not woven with the right words resembles rotten, dilapidated structures that cannot contain life.

A journalist who is in command of their language, respects their profession, can look at events objectively, and analyzes them, uses their own words in their news; they take care to construct the language of the news with their own original perspective.

Unfortunately, the news regarding the US military intervention in Venezuela showed that most journalists have lost their skills in word choice and the linguistic construction of news. In recent years, journalism has been so limited to "transmitting" that this was bound to happen.

I noticed that on January 3, the phrase "Maduro captured" was always on the tongues of news channel anchors and on the screens. The word "captured" was also used frequently in digital media. However, "capture" was the word Trump used in his statement; it reflected his perspective.

Characterizing a country's abduction of another country's head of state through a military operation as "capturing" is to reduce the event to the capture of a gang leader; worse, it is to surrender to Trump's language.

Of course, the surrender was not limited to Trump's language. The mainstream media, which also surrendered to the government, tried not to show President Erdoğan's silence throughout the day regarding the intervention in Venezuela. Hürriyet, which said "Condemnation on one side, restraint on the other," and Milliyet, which wrote "International reactions are weak," could not mention that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' statement, which failed to condemn the attack, was also "weak," and brushed it off.

The surrender of the US media also showed itself at Trump's press conference. Journalists did not ask a single critical question to Trump; they were like police reporters trying to learn the details of a criminal operation from a police chief. Not a single journalist emerged who could speak about the violation of international law.

Yet international law is a valuable achievement distilled by humanity from painful experiences lived over centuries, and protecting it is the duty of journalists...

Violence or harassment at high school?

The events that took place among students at Istanbul High School were first brought to the agenda by Sabah newspaper with the headline "Peer beating for champions." The date was December 6, 2025.

Two days later, Türkiye newspaper wrote in its headline "Harassment disgrace at Istanbul High School: Scandal at elite school" that behind the "beating" allegation, "a harassment list and intimate images targeting female students emerged." The allegations of beating and harassment at the high school later spread to the entire media; it became news everywhere.

Sabah did not let the story go. On December 27, in a report stating that the investigation was completed, it wrote, "No harassment, there is systematic violence." The report emphasized that "the harassment allegation was not verified," "the 507-item list did not belong to the victim students," and "there were no images belonging to female students." Sabah even republished the clipping of its December 6 report in a box next to this story titled "Sabah wrote the truth first."

The addressee of these statements was directly Türkiye newspaper; what was written there was being denied. However, no response came from Türkiye to Sabah. Now, what Türkiye newspaper needs to do is to prove the accuracy of the "harassment" news or correct the "harassment" news and apologize.

If the court didn't take it seriously

I couldn't believe it when I saw the news sites using the story "Necla Özmen from Ankara: Trump is my father, I want a DNA test." The news, which was passed by İHA and DHA, was published on dozens of sites and TV channels, from Evrensel to Cumhuriyet, Gazete Oksijen, Hürriyet, NTV, Sözcü, T24, Takvim, Türkiye, TVNET, and Yeni Akit.

55-year-old Necla Özmen, who lives in Ankara, was claiming that US President Donald Trump was her biological father. However, she had no concrete documents or information; it was based solely on her mother saying "This is your father" when she saw Trump on TV eight years ago. As a matter of fact, she also applied to the court, and the Ankara 27th Family Court rejected the application immediately.

That is exactly where the whole issue lies. With the court's decision in plain sight, there is no need to even touch upon the irrational elements in the news one by one. So why does the media take a bizarre "claim" that the court did not take seriously, and make it into a full-page news story?

I cannot think of any reason other than it attracting attention and people being curious enough to read and watch it. When considered in terms of "news value," this is not news. Preparing and publishing such a text, as well as reading and watching it, is a waste of time and energy. Bad journalism...

First smear, then make them use the "right of reply" for money

Sabah's story "He evaded millions with fake invoices" was based on a retired non-commissioned officer's criminal complaint against businessman Serdar Bilgili.

Sabah's story was copied on dozens of news sites such as A Haber, CNN Türk, Hürriyet, Milliyet, Patronlar Dünyası, Sözcü TV, Sabah, Takvim, T24, Yeni Akit, Muhalif, and Yeni Asır.

Serdar Bilgili and Bilgili Holding not only denied the news; they also prepared an advertisement text. While the statement became news on Haberler, Sol Haber, T24, and 12 Punto sites, it was published only as an advertisement on Sabah, Hürriyet, Milliyet, Bloomberg, and some news sites.

Sites that quoted Sabah's story granted a "right of reply" by publishing Bilgili Holding's statement. And they did the right thing. However, the fact that Milliyet and Sabah, which published the news, published it as an advertisement by taking money instead of a "right of reply" constitutes an abuse of journalism. You write negative news about a company and then you take an ad/commercial! This is a behavior contrary to the spirit of journalism. Will those who don't have money not be able to use their right of reply?

Anyway, Sabah's story, which led to such a process, was full of errors. First of all, it was a one-sided story; the opposing view was not given a chance to speak. More importantly, there was no concrete information or document regarding the accusation, and there was not even any information about the connection of the retired non-commissioned officer named Ali Aksoy, who accused Serdar Bilgili and his companies, to the subject in the news.

Actually, other sites should have paid attention to these deficiencies and checked Sabah's story before copying it exactly.

In a single sentence:

-The pro-government media published the increase in taxes and fees by framing it positively: "The increase rate in taxes and fees was reduced by 6.5 points" (Sabah), "New price in taxes and fees" (Milliyet), "Limited increase in taxes and fees" (Akşam), "6.5 point reduction in tax and fee increase" (Yeni Şafak).

-In Akşam's news "TV series compensation to Darüşşafaka," the amount of the compensation Alina Boz won and therefore the donation was missing.

-In Hürriyet's news "Actress Pınar Altuğ was spotted in Etiler the other day," there was a filtered studio photo of the actress taken while lying on the ground, not in Etiler.

-In Korkusuz's headline "Eat, masters, eat," it was written that a total of 4 million 919 thousand liras in "attendance fees" were paid to TRT Board members (in 2024), but this amount was stated as "salary" in the news.

-The pro-government media ignored the rallies organized by retirees in their news about "Retirees' eyes on salary raise."

-Prof. Dr. İlber Ortaylı wrote, "Three of our children of the homeland, our police officers, were martyred," and (in the words of Attila Aşut) "reduced our three lives, which he called 'tane' (a counter for objects), to objects, that is, objectified them."

-Cumhuriyet newspaper columnist Özdemir İnce devoted his column on December 30 to his personal problem with Digiturk and complained about this digital platform to his readers.

-Türkiye newspaper had artificial intelligence create a photo of the space base planned to be built in Somalia, but showed the base as if it were finished without stating that it was an "artificial intelligence product."

-Yeni Şafak published the promotions of the AKP-run Ümraniye Municipality, and Akşam and Türkiye published the promotions of the AKP-run Konya Metropolitan Municipality without adding the "This is an advertisement" warning.

-Halk TV repeated the footage of a sliding vehicle hitting children four times in its news "It crushed children playing with snowballs."

-In Nefes's news "TL could not get out of the losers' club," the tables for "Stars of 2025" and "Losers in 2025" were the same.

-The prices of Akşam, Aydınlık, Evrensel, Karar, Korkusuz, Milat, Milli Gazete, Milliyet, Nefes, Sabah, Takvim, Türkiye, Türkgün, Yeni Asya, Yeni Şafak, and Yeni Yaşam newspapers were increased to 20 liras, and the prices of Hürriyet and Posta were increased to 25 liras. Except for Evrensel, Korkusuz, Nefes, Milliyet, Türkiye, and Yeni Asya, the others did not make an explanation to their readers.

-Singer Gülben Ergen reacted to Show TV preventing Pınar Erbaş from presenting the news because she is the ex-wife of M. Akif Ersoy, who was arrested due to a drug investigation. She asked, "Why is she paying the price for a wrong marriage with her job?"

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