Freedom of (getting fired from) the press in Turkey
Newspapers, columnists and journalists' associations fire back over the weekend at Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's call Friday for writers he blamed for economic and political tensions to lose their jobs. Even columnists at some papers generally supportive of Erdoğan's governing Justice and Development, or AKP, party have critical responses to his words
A firestorm of angry headlines and reaction swept through the Turkish media over the weekend in the wake of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s demand that media owners fire columnists who fail to toe the line.
“Now, I am addressing the bosses of those newspapers,” Erdoğan said on live television Friday. “You cannot say: ‘What can I do? They are columnists and I cannot hold sway over them.’ You will say, ‘You are responsible for this, my friend.’ Why? Because nobody has the right to create tension in this country, [to] create tension in the economy. We will not permit that.”
Erdoğan continued by saying that when publishers pay the wages of columnists who trigger stock-market losses of 6.5 points, they do not have the right to complain to his administration about the state of the economy.
“The columnists can criticize me, that is their right,” Erdoğan said. “However, I have to make my warning too, because everybody should know their places and statuses very well.”
The prime minister then argued that the comments made about the summit he attended with the president and the chief of General Staff were ridiculous and immoral.
Before concluding his comments on the news media, he added: “Everybody is free to express their opinions. That is all very well. But there are things that are established. Of course, it is free, say the right [things]. However, then the ones who gave those people their pens need to say: ‘Excuse me, brother, there is no place for you in our store.’ Because everybody puts in their showcases the ones who deserve it.”
On Saturday, Erdoğan tried to smooth things over, saying, “We do not expect 100 percent support from anyone.” He added that even the prophets did not receive that kind of support and thus his party cannot expect it either.
The strongest media reactions
The remarks did not mollify most media members. The Turkish Journalists’ Association, or TGC, said the prime minister’s comments Friday amounted to an effort to exercise “single-party rule.” The organization released a statement that read: “We hope that the prime minister does not dream of a Turkey without freedom of the press. And we also hope that Erdoğan is aware that criticism is a must for democracies.”
The G-9 Platform, an umbrella organization for nine press associations, also weighed in to issue a statement saying that Turkey cannot claim to be a democracy if the prime minister or members of his Justice and Development Party, or AKP, administration decide what the newspapers and columnists will write.
“The prime minister is openly threatening the journalists and columnists who criticize the acts of the AKP administration,” it said.
On Saturday, newspapers focusing on the prime minister’s press invective include the dailies Hürriyet, Milliyet, Radikal, Vatan, Taraf, Cumhuriyet, Habertürk and Akşam. All covered the story on their front pages.
Leftist daily BirGün came out with arguably the strongest front-page headline: “We are firing our columnists by the order of the prime minister.” A front-page editorial also said that Erdoğan had set the limits of his tolerance at those who share his views, adding, “only fascism would fit inside those borders.”
The anti-AKP daily Sözcü chose the front-page headline “A Sledgehammer to the freedom of press from Tayyip,” referring to the “Balyoz” (Sledgehammer) Operation, the alleged coup plan against the AKP that has been on Turkey’s agenda since the end of January. Nationalist daily Yeni Çağ went with “Order to liquidate on live broadcast” as its front-page headline.
Columnists returning fire
Columnists Oktay Ekşi and Ferai Tınç from Hürriyet, Güngör Mengi from Vatan, Haluk Şahin from Radikal and Osman Ulagay from Milliyet all wrote about the subject Saturday and Sunday. Translations of their columns may be found on the Daily News’ editorial pages. Many other columnists also criticized the prime minister harshly.
A box in Hasan Cemal’s column in daily Milliyet was titled “Whoa, Mr. Prime Minister!” Taraf chief editor Ahmet Altan wrote that a day will come when prime ministers who perceive columnists as “stenographers of their bosses” will think before they speak, while Arslan Bulut from Yeni Çağ asked if Erdoğan would fine media bosses on their taxes if they do not fire the columnists he does not like.
Serdar Akinan’s headline in Saturday’s daily Akşam, “I wrote a column that the prime minister would like,” made fun of Erdoğan’s threats. Even Nazlı Ilıcak from daily Sabah, a columnist at a newspaper generally following the AKP line, found the prime minister’s remarks to be too much. Her column issued a call to members of the AKP to summon the courage to tell Erdoğan to do the right thing.
Rahmi Turan from daily Hürriyet, the parent newspaper of the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review, wrote: “The press is a mirror, but it cannot help those who do not want to see.” Kanat Atkaya, also from Hürriyet, left a small part of his column empty Sunday, asking readers, including the prime minister, to write their own columns.
Ahmet Hakan, another columnist from Hürriyet, wrote Sunday that perhaps the columnists deserve the reaction since they did not immediately produce a common headline after the speech. That headline, he wrote, should have read: “Whoa.”
Praising and burying it
Not all papers criticized Erdoğan; some, in fact, praised him. Pro-Islamist daily Vakit’s front-page headline, “The prime minister relieved,” topped a story arguing that Erdoğan’s messages had put the markets at ease. Pro-AKP daily Yeni Şafak raised the bar even higher with its front-page headline “Footsteps of advanced democracy,” a quote from Erdoğan’s speech. Two Yeni Şafak columnists, Fehmi Koru and Kürşat Bumin, however, mildly criticized the prime minister.
The pro-AKP dailies Zaman, Türkiye and Star preferred to focus on other parts of the speech in their news coverage, but two of Star’s columnists, Ergun Babahan and Mehmet Altan, criticized the prime minister’s threats. Daily Milli Gazete, a known supporter of the Saadet (Felicity) Party, did not mention Erdoğan anywhere in its Saturday edition.
