Turkey has a lively press. However, it remains a difficult environment for independent journalism due to dealings between governments and media owners, military-media relationships and ethno-religious issues. Perhaps the most obvious example of censorship in Turkey is the blocking of particular Web sites in order to prevent access to certain views and information. There is a wide variety of media outlets: more than 40 national dailies (nearly 20 of them mainstream), several national weeklies, almost three dozen local papers and two English-language national dailies. There are also about 25 national radio stations, hundreds of local radio stations and nearly 30 national -- and a great number of local TV -- channels. Radio and TV journalism has entered a new phase because of the preconditions for Turkey’s accession to the European Union, particularly since the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government’s new initiative, the TRT 6 Kurdish-language television station.
Today the stakes are higher than in the past. Due to competition among media tycoons, issues are often exaggerated to serve their interests. The latest example is the claim about suppression of freedom of the press in Turkey.
Censorship is a policy of controlling, restricting or suppressing the public expression of ideas, opinions and information within a society. The censor considers itself bound to protect the governing authority and interests or the social and moral order. It suppresses information before or after something has been published. Not all censorship is equal, nor is it always directed by the same force.
Moral censorship aims to remove what is morally questionable, obscene, pornographic or graphically violent. Military censorship keeps military intelligence and tactics from the enemy and attempts to suppress what is politically inconvenient in terms of national security issues. Political censorship holds back information from the populace to exert control over it. Religious censorship aims to remove any content objectionable to a certain faith. In corporate censorship, editors in corporate media outlets intervene to halt the publication of information that portrays their business or business partners in a negative light or that may cause a potential loss of advertising revenue, shareholder value or tender bids.
Censorship is a typical feature of dictatorships and other authoritarian political systems. Democratic nations are usually believed to have less censorship, instead promoting freedom of speech. With regard to the current controversy, if accusing the government of censorship, the media organs concerned need to provide some evidence for their claims: How does the government maintain the extensive program of state-imposed censorship they accuse it of? What is the main mechanism of official censorship in Turkey? Are there government censorship personnel in every large publishing house or newspaper? How many censors are employed to review information before it is disseminated by publishing houses, editorial offices and broadcasting studios? Is it possible to escape government control, if there is any? Do all press agencies and radio and television stations have government representatives on their editorial staff? What was overtly or covertly imposed on their media organs or editors? Why have they previously turned a blind eye to military censorship of the media, such as that imposed on the weekly magazine Nokta, for example?
Why have national security and defense suddenly become an issue for them when in the past they complained about the use of this rationale to suppress information? When basic religious rights were restricted in public and governmental spaces, when attempts were made to remove the freely elected government, where were they then?
In today’s tele-wired society it is almost impossible for any government to censor all media. In this protest against “censorship” we are hearing yet another threat to request illegitimate action against lawfully elected representatives. We are seeing media bias in this accusation of political and economic censorship. The media organs concerned would like to reduce the effects of any of their competitors or new actors in the field. They represent a class of oligarchs threatened by the emergence of real economic opportunity for other firms. The economy and politics are no longer monopolistic arrangements but offer genuine competition and innovation, and this does not please them.
Those media organs and their staff are attempting to mold the national interest to suit their individual interest. We watched the same schemes in the party closure cases and military interventions of 1960 and 1997. However, at present the Internet and online radio and journalism operate over national borders. Information on political and economic dealings can no longer be concealed from the public. Most Turks, like people in most parts of the world, are committed to the ideals of liberty, freedom, human rights, equity, justice and peace. They do not want religious, intellectual or political censorship. Also, Turkey now has many more reliable media organs that can investigate and inform the public about the bias and cheap and ultimately trivial schemes of some.
