Lessons for The Washington Post

The editorial is partly right about the latest steps by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government when it states that “Mr. [Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan is pushing through historic reforms of Turkey’s treatment of its Kurdish minority and recently took a major step toward opening the country’s border with Armenia.”

Then, the analysis takes a turn for the worse: “As Turkey’s prospects of joining the European Union have dimmed, the government’s foreign policy has taken a nasty turn” it tells us. “Shrill denunciations of Israel have been accompanied by increasing coziness with the criminal rulers of Iran, Syria and Sudan.”

This analysis is based on the assumption that “a nasty turn” should be concluded from deeds as well as words. It is, actually, an immature conclusion because as much as some statements by Erdoğan may sound alarmingly erratic, there is no concrete evidence of a “nasty turn” -- or a major, sudden change -- in Ankara’s foreign policy. The Washington Post, instead, alarmingly displays a common reflex: As soon as one criticizes Israel, one should be labeled bad. The editorial section of The Washington Post should look much more carefully into why Israel has lately become the target of massive international criticism. This would be helpful.

The section on the media in the editorial is even more problematic.

It says: “Now the government is threatening to destroy Turkey’s largest media company, Doğan Yayın. The conglomerate, which controls seven newspapers, 28 magazines and three television channels -- including Turkey’s version of CNN -- has been hit with an escalating series of tax bills based on questionable audits of past filings. The latest one, delivered in September, now stands at some $3.3 billion -- a sum greater than the value of Doğan Yayın and its parent company.

“Faced with sharp criticism by the European Union, Mr. Erdoğan and his foreign minister have insisted that the tax bills are a ‘technical matter’; in one interview the prime minister compared them to the tax case brought against gangster Al Capone. The parallel was unintentionally revealing. Mr. Erdoğan’s real problem is not with the company’s supposed tax evasion, but with its tough reporting on his government -- beginning with reports about an Islamic charity that may have illegally funneled money to his party.

“Turkish journalists say that a pall of fear has fallen across their business. Editors practice self-censorship. Many journalists are believed to be among the more than 100,000 people whose phones have been tapped by the government in recent years. Some, including the chief executive of Doğan Yayın, have been swept up in a murky investigation of alleged coup plotting.”

The editorial section of The Washington Post is obviously referring to journalists on the payroll of the Doğan Media Group, a group of colleagues who have been known to serve their proprietors’ interests rather than those of the public for years. If they had bothered to talk to any non-Doğan affiliated journalists, they would hear that the real threat to the profession in Turkey comes from proprietor-inflicted self-censorship. Had they bothered to listen to an award-winning, independent editor such as Ahmet Altan (of the Taraf daily) they would hear a brilliant analysis, appearing yesterday in his column on how the “devil’s triangle” -- military, media and judiciary -- ruled like an evil conglomerate over this country for decades.

The “tough reporting” on the government it refers to has been based on the fact that the proprietor of Doğan did not want to leave room for fair competition among his rivals; he demanded more and more behind closed doors.

To try to create an equation between the will to monopolize a sector and press freedom is not only misinformed but also immoral. Freedom of the press does not mean exemption from tax inspections.