Corporate executives pay thousands of euros to attend workshops where they learn about topics relevant to their business lives. A hot topic is leadership; how to emotionally connect with your team to motivate them toward the common goal. We in the news business understand this idea, for we're always trying to “hook” the reader, to persuade them to continue reading our article or column.OK, OK, I've made you wait long enough. The whale and penguin bit has to do with a journalist, Yiğit Bulut, who picked a fight, in print, with the top editor at his media conglomerate's main newspaper. If it does nothing else, the miniature scandal provides new evidence of the dangers of concentrated media ownership.
Bulut worked for Doğan Media Group, writing on business at the Vatan and Referans newspapers and hosting an economic news program on CNN Türk. One day he read a column by Hürriyet Editor-in-Chief Ertuğrul Özkök and got annoyed at the editor's topic, his delight at spotting a whale off Fethiye. Bulut made fun of this in his own column, writing that he had seen a penguin in the Aegean Sea.
Bulut did not stop there. He said that writing on such a light subject proved that Özkök was out of touch with readers, out of touch with the mass of Turkish public opinion. They traded some barbs, and the top editor allegedly put pressure on other group editors to stop printing this guy's tirades. Suddenly the journalist couldn't get his column printed in the paper. Bulut said this is when reality hit him.
Well congratulations, amigo. Bulut called it censorship, but he's the one who violated the old dictum: Don't bite the hand that feeds you. Hürriyet spins a disproportionate share of the profits at Doğan, hundreds of millions, so who did he expect to win?
Bulut claimed the moral high ground based on the grandness of his subjects: the economy, oil and politics, the real world. He made a big show of quitting Doğan and moving to the Ciner Group's Habertürk; the paper, not the news channel. Even his new employer is hedging its bets.
This injured journalist claimed that years in the bubble of elite editorship had led Özkök to write on light subjects, ultimately meaningless subjects. “I have seen that weighing in on serious issues and calling on others to think about them is a big offense,” he wrote in a column published before his resignation earlier this month.
Bulut is the one out of touch with the masses. Does the man pay attention to the primetime programming on Kanal D, ATV and CNBC-E? I'll give him a clue: It's not too heavy on oil and politics.
I might have more sympathy for Bulut, except I don't like his reasoning. Small subjects can edify; you can discover the whole world in a dandelion seed. I went for a picnic on Büyükada this spring and sat underneath the pines on top of a hill, watching the birds careening over the sea.
My daughter ran off and wouldn't stop until I finally caught her a hundred meters away. She was picking a blown dandelion and cried when all the fluff went flying in the breeze. I said that's what happens to little girls who don't listen; their hair turns white and blows away.
Oh, that took me back, and as one thing leads to another, I also recalled a different style of newsroom management from the old days. We had our common mission -- the Truth -- and we also had fear and uncertainty.
Yes, in the old days this story might have had a different headline: Freak mishap injures star reporter…a 2-ton roll of newsprint broke free at Doğan's main printing plant on Wednesday evening and tumbled…
Business courses these days advise CEOs to connect emotionally with their workers, but it's a rare management guru who would remind their students that fear is a valid emotion. Played properly, fear may increase productivity and reduce costly employee turnover.
