Media self-regulation in Turkey put under spotlight at roundtable

The discussion was attended by leading Turkish journalists including Today’s Zaman columnists Şahin Alpay -- also a speaker at the discussion, Andrew Finkel, Yavuz Baydar -- also the discussion moderator and the readers’ ombudsman for the Sabah daily, Milliyet daily columnist Mehveş Evin and Ognian Zlatev, Radikal daily columnist as well as the consultant of the UNESCO project.

Baydar started the discussion by explaining that the aim was to discuss what should be done to sustain the successful implementation of media self-regulation and media ethics in Turkey. Zlatev than introduced the UNESCO project in brief and said it aims to provide an internal discussion platform in countries negotiating with the EU on how to improve in journalism. “First of all I should note that the aim of this project is not to impose rules or guidelines. It provides a good opportunity for media professionals to exchange experiences and try to find the best solutions to become better in the profession,” he said. Noting that there are seven other countries included in the project, he also underlined that there are no universal standards in terms of the EU for media but that they are peculiar to each and every country.

Reasons behind Turkish media’s problems

After Zlatev’s introduction, Şahin Alpay took the floor and delivered a speech titled “Building trust and respect for journalism through self-critique,” in which he dwelled on the basic problems the Turkish media faces within Turkey. Noting that the starting point in any discussion on media should be democracy, Alpay started his speech by stressing the significance of media in democracies. “In democracies, media should operate as a forum where different ideas are presented. Media is the fourth power in democracies, following the legislative, executive and judicial power. Media is powerful in that it controls whether power centers are acting in line with democracy,” he noted. Then, Alpay complained about some deficiencies in the Turkish media, which he linked to many reasons. “The first problem is lack of editorial independence. Just as how religion and the state should be separated with a wall, there should also be a wall between the state and the media as well as one between the media and media bosses,” he said.

Alpay categorized the problems the Turkish media faces with respect to the principles of the profession. “The first category is problems caused by the state and the government. Our foreign colleagues might be surprised to hear such a distinction between the state and the government but Turkey is the country where this distinction is most obvious. What I mean by state is that there is a bureaucratic tutelage in Turkey, which implies intervention of the military and the judiciary on acts of Parliament. The problem is that these powers put pressure on the media and try to manipulate it in the direction they favor. Recently exposed documents, which had been prepared by the General Staff to manipulate the public through the media, have shown that there are men of the military in the media,” he said. Noting that despite recently implemented laws on freedom of expression there is also still the pressure of the government on the media, Alpay said another problem is the relation between editorial staff and media bosses in the Turkish media.

“In at least two papers for which I have worked in the past, I have seen that media bosses assumed themselves to be editors-in-chief of the paper,” he said. Şahin also described another reason behind the Turkish media’s problems, saying that some journalists take into consideration the priorities of the state or the government when reporting rather than those of their readers.

What kind of a self-regulation model for Turkey?

Speaking after Alpay, Stephen Pritchard -- president of Organization of News Ombudsmen (ONO) and readers’ editor of the Observer -- mentioned the ombudsmen mechanisms in Britain and said every paper has a news ombudsman in his country. He mentioned the Press Complaints Commission, an independent self-regulatory body which deals with complaints about the editorial content of newspapers and magazines in Britain, and which is composed of editors and lay people. He said that although its Code of Practice is breached almost everyday, it is there. Noting that this model promotes trust in the media and transparency, he said although it may sound like a fantasy to Turks, it is not impossible to achieve.