Which media did Gürlek mean?

     Minister of Justice Akın Gürlek stated that there is a "comprehensive cooperation between the media" and an "organized fund fraud structure" that includes "high-level financial bureaucracy" and "political profiles." He did not name names, but he did accuse "political profiles" and the "media."  

    The pro-government media, perhaps displeased, tried to cover up these words of Gürlek; some hid them between the lines, while others ignored them entirely. In Milliyet's report, the sentences regarding "political profile" and "media" were completely absent. Türkiye and Akşam filtered out the "political profile" mention. Hürriyet, Yeni Şafak, and Yeni Akit published these words between the lines. This accusation was not featured in headlines in digital media either.

    The most striking aspect was the attitude of the Turkuvaz Group. Sabah and Takvim did not report on Gürlek's statement either on their websites or in print. It was not limited to Gürlek; Sabah, Takvim, and AHaber stopped reporting on the "fund scandal" for two days. AHaber was not even interested in the fact that former Minister and AKP Deputy Chairman Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya and her husband İlyas Kaya were called to testify again; that evening, it dedicated its screen entirely to the killing of 8 people in Afyonkarahisar and bomb threats made against planes in Europe. The newspaper Sabah also glossed over the detention of Kaya with a tiny news item, without mentioning that she was a former minister and an AKP executive.

    While the Turkuvaz Group adopted this stance, other pro-government media outlets did not dwell on the words "media that is in comprehensive cooperation with those manipulating the stock market." They are already so avoidant of digging into this issue that when President Erdoğan said, "You see, people you would never expect have gotten involved in these affairs" while returning from Korea, the journalists on the plane did not even ask who he meant.

    Last week, another development reflecting the state of the pro-government media regarding the "fund scandal" was the detention of Yiğit Uzun, a writer for Diriliş Postası, who revealed the land registry records of the properties belonging to Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya and her mother, as well as the fact that the money of four companies in which AKP Deputy Chairman Nihat Zeybekçi is a partner remained in the fund. Diriliş Postası not only failed to report on the detention of its writer; it deleted his last article, "TERA's foreign connections," and all of his previous articles from the archive; it did not allow him to write articles after he was released.

    Diriliş Postası, which did not report on the detention of its own writer, put the detention of Umut Güner, one of the owners of the Dünya newspaper, on its front page! Moreover, this newspaper is managed by a journalist! Ersoy Dede had become the Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper in September 2025; in April 2026, he bought all the rights and became the owner of the newspaper. But in the dilemma between political power and journalism, he took the side of the government—as expected; he threw his writer under the bus. 

    Dünya could not report on the detention of its own concessionaire, Umut Güner. Since the fund scandal broke, Dünya has been unable to report on the investigation anyway. Despite being an economy newspaper, it settles for publishing trivial news from time to time, such as "A shift towards real estate has begun following the fund crisis." There is no time left for journalism when looking after the boss's interests. 

    These newspapers, far from journalistic standards, act as watchdogs for the interests of the government and the boss instead of the public; they cannot even sufficiently address an event like the "fund scandal." 

   Serpil Bahçeli's funeral and journalism 

   On the evening that MHP Chairman Devlet Bahçeli's sister, Serpil Bahçeli, passed away, the news in digital and social media was a complete mess. Some wrote that Serpil Bahçeli, who was a retiree from a bank, was a "Prof. Dr.," while others used the photo of journalist Serpil Çevikcan instead of Serpil Bahçeli in their news and posts.

    More importantly, hours after Serpil Bahçeli was laid to rest in Osmaniye, the news was only three or five sentences long and lacked key elements. It is not known when she died; it was not written or stated, but it is known that the funeral was held after the afternoon prayer, meaning around 15:00.

    The first news report was published about two hours later. ObjektifA, a local site in Adana, broke the first news at 16:43. Then, Odatv put the news on its site at 18:05, followed by the local newspaper Akdeniz at 18:42, and 12Punto at 18:57. From around 19:30 onwards, the news of the death spread thoroughly through digital channels. Interestingly, news agencies were slower; ANKA published the news at 20:25, İHA at 21:15, and DHA at 21:57. In Anadolu Agency, there was no news of the funeral until President Erdoğan published a condolence message at midnight. 

     In fact, there was no news about Serpil Bahçeli's passing even in the MHP's publication, Türkgün newspaper. Because both Devlet Bahçeli and the MHP administration glossed over Serpil Bahçeli's death with silence. Even Deputy Speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey Celal Adan gave up on and deleted the condolence post he shared at 20:14, but there were some deputies who shared messages later. 

    The news reports did not include the names of the MHP members who attended the ceremony, nor did they mention that Devlet Bahçeli did not attend his sister's funeral. Yet Serpil Bahçeli, who was a retiree from a private bank, had stayed with Devlet Bahçeli for many years in their home in Tandoğan, cooked his meals, and supported him. I described this closeness in my book "Siluetini Sevdiğimin Türkiyesi," published in 2000.

     The reason why he did not go to the funeral of his sister, to whom he was so close, is unknown; it was not stated, nor was it explained. This information was not even in the print media reports the next day. 

    We have seen the decline in journalistic reflexes in the reporting displayed after Serpil Bahçeli's death. Just think, the death of the sister of the chairman of the party that is a partner in the government cannot be learned for hours; the funeral ceremony cannot be followed, and hours after she is laid to rest, a news report full of deficiencies can be produced. 

  A media that cannot even reach information about a death, and then can only produce a half-baked news report... 

Let us not present an allegation as a verdict

  Prof. Dr. Murat Somer objected to the headline "It has been revealed why former Borsa İstanbul General Manager Korkmaz Enes Ergun took a bribe" on the Gazete Pencere website:

   "The journalist has no additional research on the material truth; they are only relaying the allegation in the prosecutor's referral letter. Writing a headline like this with the thought that it will 'attract interest' has become a journalistic culture, but it is actually a disease."

   Indeed, the sentence in the spot of the news, "It is alleged that Borsa İstanbul AŞ General Manager Korkmaz Enes Ergun took a bribe in exchange for not delaying the opening of Destek Faktoring shares to repo trading," mentioned an "allegation." The news was also entirely based on the prosecutor's referral letter regarding Ergun.

    It is unfair to put a headline like "It has been revealed why he took a bribe" on such a news item. Because it is an allegation that Ergun took a bribe. Presenting the prosecutor's allegation as if it were finalized by a court decision is contrary to the principle of "innocence." It means declaring that person guilty without being tried.

   A journalist should be fair to everyone, regardless of who the subject of the news is, and should not move away from objectivity. They should also take care to ensure that the headline is consistent with the content of the news. 

   What is a "forbidden relationship" anyway?

   Akşam newspaper had put the headline "Mukhtar father slaughtered his daughter and her lover: Bullets for the forbidden relationship" on a murder story in Ankara. The following information about the murder was given in the spot of the news:

    "In Ankara, neighborhood mukhtar Bülent Kesen shot and killed his daughter Elif, whose relationship he did not approve of, and her married hairdresser lover Ercan Oruç with a pistol. While it is alleged that the young girl was pregnant, the father, who said 'I cleaned my honor,' surrendered to the police."

    The editors who wrote this headline and spot may not be aware, but this news creates the perception in the reader that "The father killed his daughter who was having a forbidden relationship and the man who led her astray, and cleaned his honor." The news text also supports the perception in the headline and spot, legitimizing the murder. 

     And anyway, what is a "forbidden relationship"? Since there is no obstacle in terms of laws, who decided that it was a 'forbidden relationship'? If it was called a "forbidden relationship" because the man in this relationship was married, the man's wife had learned about this relationship and separated. After that, these two started living in the same house.

  In this incident, it is not a "forbidden relationship" but a "relationship that the father did not approve of." This is the correct definition in terms of journalism. In fact, this information is also included in the news.

   There is also an effort to create causality for the murder in the headlines of Yeni Şafak, "A father in Ankara killed his 19-year-old daughter and the 53-year-old man she lived with," and Sabah, "Father who shot and killed his daughter and the man she lived with in Ankara: 'She cursed, I killed'." A father may not easily accept his 19-year-old daughter running away from home and starting to live with a man with an age gap between them. But this cannot be a justification for a murder. And journalism cannot, and should not, give legitimacy to such a murder with its news. 

    As a matter of fact, Hürriyet had used the headline "Father who killed his daughter and her lover caught," and Sözcü had used "Father who killed his daughter and the man she lived with caught" for the same murder. "Forbidden relationship" was not mentioned in these news reports either. Some sites also called it a "brutal murder." There is only information in these news reports that the father "did not approve of his daughter's relationship," that is all. 

    It means that murder news can be written without using a language that justifies it.

   What good is such news to anyone?

   Now TV had held a microphone to the workers who had been protesting in front of the construction company owner's villa for days for their unpaid wages. It was a good thing; while the workers were explaining their problems, they said that the boss did not meet with them and that they slept in cars at night. Just as no official stood up for the workers, they sent a group of police to the front of the villa to protect the boss.

   This news was published in the main news bulletin. On the screen, it read "Seeking rights in front of the boss's villa." I watched the four-minute news report to the end with curiosity. 

    I expected the reporter to knock on that businessman's door, ask about the workers' complaints, and report his response in the news. If the door doesn't open and the boss doesn't talk, they should show that too. Because he is the real subject of the news. But they didn't ask; they just let the workers speak and finished the news. They didn't give the name of the company, the site being built, or the businessman! They left the addressee of the news ambiguous. 

    Unfortunately, this is the fashionable journalism of the period. NOW TV made the workers' complaint news, but it also didn't put the boss in a difficult situation. One must ask, what good is this news to anyone? If you don't give the name, can this news solve the workers' problem?

In a single sentence:

• Koç Holding took journalists Açıl Sezen, Aysun Öz, Deniz Zeyrek, Doğan Satmış, Doğan Şentürk, Elif Ergu, Emre İskeçeli, Ertuğrul Özkök, Gila Benmayor, İpek Yezdani, İhsan Yılmaz, Jale Özgentürk, Kadir Kaymakçı, Murat Yetkin, Nilay Örnek, Serfiraz Ergun, Servet Yıldırım, Şelale Kadak, Songül Hatısaru, Yazgülü Aldoğan, and Özlem Güsar to London as guests to promote the exhibition "From Constantinople to Istanbul: One City, Two Empires," which it sponsors. 

• Sözcü distorted the words of DEM Party Co-Chair Tuncer Bakırhan, "So the process is not blocked or anything," and reported it with the headline "Bakırhan: The solution process is blocked." 

• In the "48th Istanbul Marathon" news of Sabah, Karar, and Türkiye newspapers, the information that the race was organized by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality was not provided.

• According to the "Press Freedom Report" of New Party Deputy Chairman Utku Çakırözer, journalists appeared before a judge 50 times last month; 11 were detained, and 6 were arrested.

• An investigation was opened against Bianet Editorial Manager Vecih Cuzdan due to the news regarding the "arrest of journalist Yelis Ayaz."

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