The hotel advertisement of the main news anchor

   In a YouTube video titled “Cyprus is on the verge of brand new beginnings,” Özlem Gürses begins by saying, “I am in Cyprus after many years. Come on, let’s go to Cyprus,” and walks around Famagusta, the castle, and the streets. 

    However, she eventually says, “Now I will take you to the future of Cyprus,” and heads to a luxury hotel and the same company’s villa project. Accompanied by a manager, she tours the hotel and the villas, receiving information.

Then, saying “Shall we see it with our own eyes?” she begins to walk around the area, engaging in blatant advertising with statements like, “The facility by the sea can be used by both hotel guests and families who own residences.” The video ends with footage of the hotel and the rooms. 

    In the second part of the video, Özlem Gürses interviews artist Ziynet Sali, who bought a residence in the construction project, again accompanied by footage from the same hotel. The video closes with the same promotional footage, and Özlem Gürses thanks the company.

   She used Cyprus as a backdrop, but clearly, the real purpose of both videos is to advertise that hotel and construction project. With so many hotels and construction companies in Cyprus, why did she choose these? Did she receive a fee in exchange for the advertisement? We do not know. 

    But she added a note under the video on YouTube: “I spent a week in the TRNC, which I love very much. ...I toured Cyprus for you, hosted by the ...Group.” She disclosed that there is a sponsorship relationship.

   It is also evident that Özlem Gürses considers such sponsorship relationships legitimate, as she has included an email address for “collaborations” on her YouTube account. Indeed, after Cyprus, she went to a detox center in Bodrum and broadcast from there as well. 

   However, by advertising the hotel and construction project, she has also assumed responsibility for any negative aspects related to that company. Furthermore, Özlem Gürses is not a YouTuber; she is a journalist who presents the main news bulletin on Sözcü TV. Every piece of news she reports should be prepared solely with journalistic motives and contain information not based on conflicts of interest. Entering into a sponsorship relationship and personally engaging in advertising damages her credibility and creates the impression of a conflict of interest. 

    As I have written many times before, a journalist can receive advertisements, but they cannot mix advertising with journalism by doing the advertising themselves or appearing in commercials. 

    It was not the National Anthem that was whistled! 

     For some reason, football writers never saw the “yellow body bag” being waved in the stands during the Kocaelispor vs. Amedspor match or the tension that occurred. They continued to write about the match result and the football on the pitch.

   Neither the football websites that evening nor the programs on TV mentioned the events, nor did the newspapers the next day. Newspapers that dedicate pages to football, such as Hürriyet, Milliyet, and Sabah, as well as sports newspapers like Fotomaç and Fanatik, acted as if nothing had happened in the stands.

     The media only perceived the event a day later when the prosecutor’s office took action and announced that five people who waved “yellow body bags” had been detained on charges of “provocative action” and were placed under house arrest. The prosecutor’s statement was published in many places, from Cumhuriyet to Yeni Şafak. 

   However, Serap Belovacıklı, who presents the main news bulletin on Sözcü TV, said after reporting the news: “As wrong as it is to wave a yellow body bag, it is equally wrong and ugly for Amedspor to try to silence the National Anthem with whistles on the field. Five people were detained here, why didn’t you do anything to the others? Are they a superior race?”

      The newspaper Sözcü continued Belovacıklı’s line with the headline “The National Anthem cannot be whistled,” and the same group’s Korkusuz with “Booing our National Anthem is not a crime.” In Sözcü, which stated “Provocations are increasing, the opening process is getting out of hand,” the captions over the photos read “Disrespect to the National Anthem” and “Some booed, some made gun-firing gestures.” 

     It was very sad that Belovacıklı lost her composure to the point of using a discriminatory sentence like “Are they a superior race?” instead of acting cool-headed. The stance of the newspapers Sözcü and Korkusuz was also far from journalistic objectivity. They did not consider the negative impact on society of making death threats by waving “yellow body bags” with a hostile and hate-filled approach. Indeed, the reaction shown yesterday in Trabzon to a woman wearing an Amedspor jersey became a new example of the negative consequences that could occur.

    The Sözcü group’s opposition to the ongoing process regarding the law on the liquidation of the PKK should not have led to the misrepresentation of what happened at the match. For instance, the incident where an Amedspor fan held a flag like a gun was not at the Kocaelispor match, as Sözcü wrote, but at the Erzurumspor match. That fan was also banned from entering the stadium. 

      Most importantly, despite my scans, I could not find any footage of Amedspor fans whistling while the National Anthem was being played. In fact, Sözcü TV did not broadcast such footage either. What I saw was that while the National Anthem was being played, most Kocaelispor fans were making the grey wolf sign; most Amedspor fans were listening by holding their team scarves in the air, and a few people were making gestures or victory signs instead of standing in silence. In fact, they even applauded the anthem at the end.

    After the anthem, the slogan “My life is sacrificed for the homeland” was chanted from the Kocaelispor stands; Amedspor fans whistled at them and then chanted the Kurdish slogan “Jin jiyan azadi” (Woman, life, freedom). As the kickoff was taken, “yellow body bags,” a reference to the bags in which the bodies of PKK members are carried, were waved in the Kocaelispor stands. Clearly, there was no provocation there; they had brought the bags with them to the stadium. 

    In fact, the tension started before the match with the abusive slogans of the Kocaeli fans, but the number of people waving yellow bags and those showing disrespect while the national anthem was being played was very small. However, the Sözcü group, using the behavior of a few people as a pretext, blamed Amedspor and all its fans and targeted them. They have invited conflict for Amedspor’s future matches. 

   I wish the football media had watched and reported what was happening in the stands during that match so we wouldn’t have been exposed to such disinformation. Unfortunately, the football media doesn’t even realize that ignoring the events in the stands fuels conflicts, violence, and hostility among fans… 

     Called a journalist “impertinent,” an investigation began 

     Two incidents of obstruction and insults against journalists occurred in succession in İzmir. MHP İzmir Provincial Chairman Veysel Şahin called Dijitalgaste.com reporter Gamze Eskiköy on the phone and demanded the removal of the news story titled “Tension at the İzmir ‘brotherhood’ meeting.” Then he insulted the newspaper’s Editor-in-Chief, Ümit Özmen.

    AKP Secretary General and İzmir Deputy Eyyüp Kadir İnan also insulted Ender Aldanmaz, a writer for the newspaper Ege’de Sonsöz, who wrote that the “Bergama Mayor would visit to ensure his transition from the New Party to the AKP” at a ceremony, by calling him a “rag journalist.”

   It was a natural and democratic reaction for the İzmir Journalists Association (İGC) to issue a statement against these insolent behaviors, saying, “Journalists are no one’s errand boy.” What was strange was that the prosecutor’s office summoned İGC President Dilek Gappi to testify following Eyyüp Kadir İnan’s reaction: “Who are you to show the impertinence of publishing a declaration against a political movement?” 

    With this attitude, the prosecutor’s office supported the insults and pressure of politicians who want to intimidate journalists instead of protecting press freedom and journalists. It deemed journalists supporting their colleagues a crime of “publicly spreading slander or misleading information!”   

    But Gappi and the İGC did not take a step back. This time, they issued a statement saying, “We cannot and will not remain silent against such attitudes towards our profession.” Other professional organizations also supported the İGC. Let us applaud the İGC and the journalists of İzmir for their uncompromising stance and remind everyone once again:

    “Journalists are not the errand boys of politicians; those who act like errand boys are not journalists.”

They didn’t defend it, but they didn’t correct it either

   The interview that Yılmaz Bilgen from the newspaper Türkiye conducted with PYD/SDF Kobani Commander Mahmut Berhudan was very successful. Indeed, the interview titled “We buried the weapons,” published on August 16, was cited in many media outlets and discussed extensively. 

   In his news story five days later titled “SDF: We passed the most difficult stage: It will end despite Israel,” Yılmaz Bilgen stated that he had also interviewed Sipan Hemo, one of the founders of the SDF. However, SDF Press Spokesperson Ferhad Şami, in a statement published by the Mesopotamia Agency, denied the news, stating that Sipan Hemo had not given such an interview.

   In journalism, two paths can be followed after such a denial. Either you defend your news and provide evidence. If you have no material to defend it, you apologize and publish a correction.

   The newspaper Türkiye neither defended nor corrected its news. When the liquidation of the YPG was announced, they published the clipping of the first news story, saying, “This is how we announced the process.” But they ignored the denial of the second news story. This is a style of journalism that risks misleading readers and does not care about the credibility of the news.

Reader opinions:

     Kemal Kaplan: Opposition journalists use the term “discrediting” a lot when an operation is carried out against themselves, people of their own worldview, and institutions. They invoke the presumption of innocence. However, when an operation is carried out against those who are not like them, not a shred of this comes to their minds. They accept the statements of the Ministry of Justice and the police as true and report them as they are. It is a tremendous double standard. Calling it lawlessness from the very beginning when it is done to you, and accepting it from the beginning when it is done to others... Is this moral-ethical journalism?

     Arda Özsu: My teacher Emre (Alkin) wrote a very nice article in today’s Gazete Pencere, but I didn’t understand what he meant by the headline “While Trump pushes the US towards becoming a rogue state.” When I searched on the internet, I was able to learn that “rogue state” means “haydut devlet.” I think if such an expression is used in the headline, it should have been explained with an (*) below.

    N. G.: To what should we attribute the use of the cliché “an argument broke out for an unknown reason” in news about femicide? Is it curiosity about “who knows what happened that he killed the woman”? Does it save the person, primarily the reporter, from thinking and resorting to both their professional curiosity and their conscience? Is it used this way on an international scale as well? Also, what is the logic behind the frequent use of royal news that targets Meghan Markle in Hürriyet?

      In a single sentence:

• Akşam and Sabah, which ignored the miners protesting in Ankara because they hadn’t received their wages for months, published a news story titled “Salary delay is a valid reason for termination.” 

• Yeni Akit continued its campaign against women’s freedom of dress with the headline “Display fashion is corrupting generations.”

• Sabah, on the day of the verdict in the Aziz İhsan Aktaş case, published a news story titled “Time for reckoning in the billion-lira embezzlement,” declaring the defendants guilty before the court’s decision; it directed the judiciary.

• Halktv.com.tr misled readers and engaged in clickbait with the headline “35 thousand TL will be deposited into retirees’ accounts before August ends” in its news about bank promotions. 

• Ensonhaber, NTV, Milliyet, and İHA, unlike many news sites, did not write that the electric vehicle that burned near Söke was a model of Mercedes’ AMG EQE 53 series.

• Akşam published texts regarding the actions prepared by the AKP-run Haliliye (Şanlıurfa) municipality, and Yeni Şafak did the same for the Yıldırım (Bursa) municipality, without adding an “advertisement” warning.

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