As Turkey's press baron extraordinaire, he openly promoted his allies and intimidated his foes to carve out a world favorable to himself. He confessed as much in an interview I once did for TIME magazine in which he defended his papers' support for a press law which actually restricted freedoms of expression but which allowed his media holding to be more aggressive in expanding his share of the television market. Why, he asked me, should he cut off his nose to spite his face?Mr. Doğan was used to cultivating governments, and in the days of weak coalitions, his support mattered. Many regard the 1995 general election in Turkey as a proxy fight between the Doğan Group and Sabah rather than the parties on the ballot paper. Before entering a (failed) coalition with Tansu Çiller, Mesut Yılmaz went to consult with Doğan and the two remained allies. This in itself was not a crime (Tony Blair paid similar sorts of homage to Rupert Murdoch). However, the Doğan Group was persistently criticized for rendering paper thin the firewall between editorial independence and financial self-interest. Ertuğrul Özkök, the editor of the flagship Hürriyet newspaper, proudly wore two hats -- that of a journalist and that of a member of the board who could happily negotiate incentives from the government for factories his parent company was trying to build.
Let me declare my own interest. At one stage, I was on the receiving end of a campaign about my own reporting and after Hürriyet printed a set of particularly malicious inventions about my wife's academic integrity, she successfully and very publicly sued for libel. Before anyone spoke about Ergenekon, most commentators assumed that national intelligence could book column inches in one of the Doğan newspapers to plant any story that they liked. Yet during my interview with Mr. Doğan, he complained that it was he who had become the target for “every unemployed journalist with a grudge.” He went on: "Far from using my papers to secure commercial advantage, I have been made a target because I own newspapers. But I never complained.”
He is complaining now. The size of the fines being imposed (the latest round this week brings the total well over $3 billion) are staggering and close to the entire market capital of the Doğan businesses (The figure of three-quarters has been given, ignoring that Petrol Ofisi -- the downstream petroleum company -- has a major foreign partner).
Yet while many shed crocodile tears for the Doğan Group's plight, there must still be real anxiety that it is being forced to pay a price for its role as house newspaper for the opposition to the government. The Doğan Group and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) have never gotten along. The prime minister has other pet newspaper groups. News of the Doğan tax fines coincide with an announcement by the central bank that Turkey can probably manage on its own without a stand-by agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Some of the IMF prerequisites were changes in Turkey's tax regime and a guarantee of independence from political interference. Those who believe that the Doğan Group is a corrupting influence on the Turkish media still cannot put their hands on their hearts to swear it would be having the same legal troubles if Doğan media interests were rallying around the government.
The case against the Doğan group will of course attract attention from beyond Turkey's boundaries. The government knows it will have to grow a rhinoceros hide to resist the accusations that it is pursuing justice and not a vendetta and that it admires the Copenhagen criteria more than a style of governance engineered by Vladimir Putin. At the same time, those who cry “foul” must be aware that their protests would carry greater weight if they had done more to support the cause of quality journalism in the first place.
