The Rome trip, invited journalism, and Murat Ongun’s response

The Rome trip, for which Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM) Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu took a delegation of 69 people for the signing ceremony of the "2027 European Games" in Istanbul, was heavily debated and criticized for its level of waste. I evaluated it from a journalistic perspective. 

Ertuğrul Özkök was the one who wrote about the trip in the most detail. He published the list of the 37 journalists who participated in the trip, but he did not provide information on who covered the travel expenses. I asked İmamoğlu’s advisor, Murat Ongun, "Did the IMM cover the expenses of the journalists you invited to the Rome trip?" Ongun gave the following response:

"Unfortunately, this question is a perspective that belittles journalists; in other words, will journalists who observe and write about Turkey’s success not write the truth because they are thinking about the event expenses? The ECHR provides travel, food, and accommodation expenses to everyone, including journalists testifying in hearings; can we say that a journalist who receives this will not tell the truth in the hearing?

We did not invite journalists for our own or our party’s propaganda. We invited them to share in the success of Turkey and Istanbul. Should journalists who snack and drink at embassy receptions not do these things? This is a wrong debate; the discussion should be held over the journalist’s question and news. Truth is what is important."

I cannot agree with Ongun’s comparisons and views. Because the Rome trip is as much a public relations activity for İmamoğlu as it is about Istanbul. If it were not, political writers would not have been invited alongside sports writers for a sporting event.

Of course, I cannot say that our journalist friends would stop writing the truth just because the IMM covered their travel expenses. But what is important is the emergence of a suspicion of a conflict of interest. It should have been avoided to even allow "suspicion to arise" in the eyes of readers and viewers.

Furthermore, establishing an invitation relationship can affect a journalist’s critical stance. Indeed, can it be said that a critical approach dominated the articles of the journalists who participated in the Rome trip? 

Undoubtedly, journalists participate in such trips if there is news value. But as with any news, the expenses of the trip should be paid by the journalist’s institution, not the news source. Therefore, it is a universal professional principle that "journalists should not participate in any trip as an invitee, except for trips that cannot be covered in any other way," and that "if they do go as an invitee, this must be stated in the news."  

Media organizations should have paid the expenses of the journalists they sent if they saw news value in the Rome trip. Such habits may have disappeared in the "New Turkey," but in the past, the aircraft costs for the President’s or Prime Minister’s trips were divided per passenger and collected from the journalists. The journalists’ institutions paid for hotels, etc. This is the correct way.   

THEY IGNORED THE ACQUITTAL IN THE YASIN BÖRÜ ACCUSATION 

Journalism requires consistency and the ability to look at events without prejudice. If people have been cleared of an accusation you have been repeating for years, it is necessary to convey this to readers and viewers as well.  

When the court issued an acquittal decision for Selahattin Demirtaş and 36 HDP executives in the Kobani case regarding the accusation of the murder of Yasin Börü and five others during the Kobani protests, I immediately scanned the pro-government media.

Because for years, pro-government newspapers, websites, and television channels were filled with news such as "He has Yasin’s blood on his hands" and "Yasin Börü’s mother: You are my son’s murderer, Demirtaş." Like President Erdoğan, the pro-government media had also passed judgment; Selahattin Demirtaş and HDP executives were responsible for Yasin Börü and the other murders!

The acquittal decision by the court—which did not even listen to the ECHR ruling and sentenced Demirtaş and other HDP members to decades in prison—regarding Yasin Börü and the other murders was absent from the pro-government media! I only saw this decision in passing in Hürriyet and Milliyet. Sabah, Türkiye, Y. Akit, and Y. Şafak, which ignored the acquittal, kept repeating the accusation regarding the murder of Yasin Börü in their news about the case. 

Yet, the only concrete accusation in this case was these murders. When no concrete evidence could be found, abstract accusations like "the unity of the state and the integrity of the country" remained. The acquittal of Demirtaş and the HDP members from the murder charges was an admission that the case was political; it also meant the collapse of the indictment.

I’ll skip the journalistic reflex; if they had even a little bit of conscience, they would have put this acquittal decision, not the conviction decision, at the top and apologized to their readers and viewers. But alas!      

TOKEN SAVINGS WITH A PRIVATE JET

The news that "The official vehicle is gone, a minibus has arrived," reported by Anadolu Agency and İhlas News Agency, was used in many places from Akşam to Milliyet, and from Odatv to Habertürk.

According to the news, Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Abdulkadir Uraloğlu traveled by minibus instead of an official vehicle during his Malatya trip. There were only three minibuses in the minister’s convoy.

Journalism is a matter of questioning. Since Minister Uraloğlu attaches such great importance to savings, one should have also asked whether he came to Malatya on a scheduled flight. After all, the real savings would have been not using a private jet.

I searched and found the answer to this question on the Malatya Haber website. While major agencies and mainstream media were reporting "Great savings" news, this site had published a story titled "The minister who arrived by private jet has a three-minibus savings convoy." 

The news, which stated that Minister Uraloğlu arrived in the city by private jet, also included a photo of Uraloğlu taken in front of the private jet. Uraloğlu returned to Ankara on the same plane. This proved that Uraloğlu’s use of a minibus was a token saving. 

This is critical journalism; journalism is not done by acting as a loudspeaker for every word spoken. Such so-called journalism is of no use to the country or those politicians.

"FARMERS' DAY" ADVERTISEMENTS HAVE DROPPED

"World Farmers' Day" has become a source of advertising for newspapers in recent years. Newspapers that almost never give space to news about farmers and agriculture on their economy pages allocate pages for "Farmers' Day" every year on May 14. Of course, since the main goal is to make money, most of these pages are covered with advertisements and promotional texts that look like news.

However, this year, the "Farmers' Day" pages have decreased significantly. For example, in 2020, 4 pages each were published in Sabah and Türkiye; 3 pages each in Akşam, Hürriyet, Posta, Y. Akit, Milliyet, and Türkgün; and 2 pages each in Sözcü, Takvim, and Yeni Asır. This year, 5 pages each were allocated to "Farmers' Day" in Akşam and Posta, 4 in Türkgün, 3 in Sabah, 2 each in Hürriyet, Milliyet, and Türkiye, and 1 each in Sözcü, Takvim, and Yeni Asır. In total, 32 pages in 2020, and 26 pages this year...

Dünya, an economy newspaper, had also spread "Farmers' Day" over 10 pages in 2020. This year it dropped to 6 pages. 6 pages were also allocated to farmers in Ekonomim, which started broadcasting two years ago. 

If it weren't for Ziraat Bank, Denizbank, and Kuveyt Türk, as well as the AKP-run Konya and Giresun Municipalities, interest in "Farmers' Day" would end completely. 

A FICTIONAL BACKSTAGE STORY!

Sözcü columnist Necati Doğru’s article on May 13, titled "The Presidential Palace is being closed (!)," reflected the author’s imagination. To ensure it wasn't mistaken for a "backstage story," he put an exclamation mark in the title and specifically emphasized that "he is not someone who leaks and writes backstage stories."

Despite this, Doğru’s article was misunderstood and presented incorrectly on social and digital media. Posts were made from many accounts saying "Backstage: The Presidential Palace is being closed," and news was published in this direction. On some sites, under the headlines "Backstage: The Presidential Palace is being closed," a warning was included stating "An article written by Necati Doğru in an ironic language." But on some sites, without even the "ironic language" reminder, the headline "Shocking instruction that will make you cry! That claim that will shake everything if it’s true" was used.

Presenting a fictional article as a "backstage story" is a serious journalistic error. Including an "ironic language" warning inside the story after presenting it as a "backstage story" in the headline is also very insufficient. Providing incomplete information in the headline to "fish" for readers is also misleading.

Just think, Necati Doğru even felt the need to explain that the article about the Palace being closed was a "product of imagination" by writing on May 15, "My dream didn't come true: The Palace didn't become a stable!"

In a single sentence:

• Cem Küçük, in his article "Ayhan Bora Kaplan news was served to opposition and FETÖ-member journalists," tried to portray the journalism done by journalists Uğur Dündar, Tolga Şardan, and Saygı Öztürk regarding this criminal organization as a crime.
• Sabah did not include the fact that Uğur Dündar, whom it cast suspicion on with the news "He was allowed to meet with Uğur Dündar while in custody" and "Statements reached Uğur Dündar before the prosecutor," denied this claim and stated that HTS records would prove it.  
• While Akşam announced the hike the IMM made to water as "36 percent hike in water in Istanbul," it did not write the rate of the hike made to highway and bridge tolls and the old fees in the "New tariff for highway and bridge tolls" news it published right next to it.
• Milliyet also described the increase in highway and bridge tolls as a "new regulation" in its news "New regulation for bridge and highway tolls."
• The news "Increase in extra course fees stuck in the savings package," used in the Türkiye newspaper on the day Sabah published "Extra course fee for teachers," refuted it. 
• The opposition media, which extensively covered the claim by CHP’s Afyonkarahisar Mayor Burcu Köksal that a listening device was found in her office, did not see any news value in the prosecutor’s office issuing a decision of non-prosecution.
• In Yeni Şafak’s "Full trust in the Diyanet" news, it was stated that trust in religious officials was 70 percent, but the information that this rate was 80 percent last year was not provided. 
• In my article last week, I wrote the expansion of KADEM as "Women’s Labor Evaluation Foundation"; the correct one should be "Women and Democracy Foundation." I correct it and apologize.

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