Interesting, isn’t it? Although some claim that he did not actually resign but was removed from office, this does not change a thing. The important thing is that he no longer assumes the position he tended to regard as the “peak of power” and from which he used to put the world in order.Even this farewell sentence hints at Özkök’s legacy. This sentence is strong proof that Hürriyet, which Özkök managed uninterruptedly for 20 years, intended only to satisfy its clients with the slogan “Turkey belongs to the Turks.” But let us be fair because, in the final analysis, Özkök was the figure who introduced professionalism to the media, albeit in its most negative sense. If this mentality of professionalism had not been accompanied by a lack of any respect for principles or ethics whenever dictated by personal or group interests, we would not have been in any position to criticize it. But, thankfully, we know that Özkök, who managed to become the most democratic, most civic, most easygoing, most bohemian and most peaceful in ordinary times, turns into a merciless and tyrannical warlord who does not care in the least about principles, morals, ethics, rights or the rule of law in critical times.
Of course it would be unfair for us to conclude -- only based on this sentence -- that he is utterly clueless about the values of this society, not only in terms of his lifestyle or behavioral patterns, but also with respect to his ideas, fears and even dreams. But, if this simple sentence was uttered at the critical junction of one’s life, characterized by a full-fledged catharsis, then we are perfectly justified to assert that things were very serious.
We must acknowledge that Özkök was a journalist who was at the center of discussions during the period he served as editor-in-chief. We more or less know what papers wrote about him. But now that some time has passed since his resignation, I took the trouble yesterday to conduct some brief research into how Özkök and his resignation were assessed in media other than the press. I went to the popular idea-exchange Web site eksisozluk.com and was not at all surprised to find some 1,500 entries about Özkök. It seems Özkök was also a popular figure among fans of eksisozluk.com. Yes, but does such a high number of entries mean anything? I can hear you asking about the content of these entries. I was not surprised in the least that almost all of these entries expressed negative feelings about Özkök. You are right, Özkök was quite adept at making other people talk about him and his deeds. But I cannot say that this talk is mostly characterized by approval or admiration.
He epitomized a publication mentality that turned his paper and the media group in which he was influential into a war machine with a view to ensure that Turkey enters the dirty war in Iraq and which manipulated the weak government to protect and promote the interests of the Doğan group and the military-civilian bureaucracy and the big corporations in İstanbul which would act in cooperation with this group and which would neutralize those governments that refused to cooperate with such manipulation through antidemocratic and illegal methods. We do not have the time or space to list the names of people whose lives were turned into hell by his publication mentality. In fact, it is better for us to leave the floor to a conscientious professional from the journalism business, Umur Talu, who knew Özkök well. Talu, who had once acted as the editor-in-chief of the Milliyet newspaper, wrote the following about Özkök in his column at Habertürk:
“If a person, after having been given the opportunity to hold a position for a long time during which he could perform a good, honest, fair and just job that respects human values and good and true news and that refuses to accept censorship and that is trustworthy and dependable, has mixed a mentality of management and journalism into one that can even hurt its own colleagues while at the same time affecting many lives with the ebbs and flows of opportunism, and if he has openly caused several results ranging from the collective massacre of defenseless people in prison to singling out certain people and making them targets of various attacks, and if he has frequently made his paper and his journalism mentality part of the power games or authors or players of some civilian or military, economic or global powers, and if, instead of regarding such sins as manipulation, censorship, self-censorship, hiding some news, twisting some headlines, following up some tenders, setting traps, denouncing people, selling out one’s colleagues, causing the collapse of one’s rivals as accidents or daily errors, he has boasted about writing a new book on journalism or said that this was what the market requires, and if he has continually submitted to the institutional, managerial and personal ambitions and rejected all objections and added to greed, and if he had boasted about and been praised for making a paper which once sold 600,000 without promotion campaigns in a less crowded country sell only 500,000 while its rival experienced hard times, and for sticking to his position at all costs, then conscience will banish him away and will not give any consolation.”
In this context, we cannot agree more with Alper Görmüş’s assessments in his recent article, “Özkök and his paper: the military spirit in the body of a hedonist,” which appeared in the Taraf daily. “In my opinion, Özkök’s actual achievement is the ability of his paper to simultaneous perform these two opposite functions: His paper played a serious role in liberating the social and private life in Turkey while blocking the political liberation of the country. Political scientists argue that the latter is a natural extension of the former. In this respect, what Ertuğrul Özkök achieved was never an easy business.
“If you want to see how the Hürriyet readership, who would grow ‘modern’ and hawkish when it comes to ‘lifestyles’ acts with respect to politics, just visit Hürriyet’s Web site and see the readers’ comments. Then you’ll understand better the essence of what Ertuğrul Özkök achieved.
“Of course, part of this success can be attributable to the fact that he was addressing a mass of people who were scared to death and dimwitted politically. But in my opinion, the sincerity of the editor-in-chief really played the greatest role. I believe Ertuğrul Özkök’s heart [soul] sincerely favors state [vs. society], authoritarianism [vs. freedom] and militarism [vs. civilian values]. If this may sound too harsh, let me change it: When there is tension between these pairs, Ertuğrul Özkök has always sided with the former,” he wrote.
