INSIDE THE TURKISH GOVERNMENT'S PROPAGANDA MACHINE

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INSIDE THE TURKISH GOVERNMENT'S PROPAGANDA MACHINE

By Kate O'Sullivan and Laura Benitez
Apr 8 2014


A Turkish protest for internet freedom in February. Photos by Charles
Emir Richards

"Journalists wanted for international news agency," read the Guardian
job ad. As an editor in an industry where legitimate opportunities are
few and far between, you apply for pretty much any full-time job you
see, so apply we did. A couple of months later, we arrived in Ankara,
Turkey, ready to `write history' as the first international
journalists to be welcomed into the Anadolu Agency (AA) family.

We joined the agency in January, supposedly to edit English-language
news, but quickly found ourselves becoming English-language spin
doctors. The AA's editorial line on domestic politics'and Syria'was so
intently pro-government that we might as well have been writing press
releases. Two months into the job, we listened to Deputy Prime
Minister Bülent Arınç talking some shit about press freedom from an
event at London's Chatham House, downplaying the number of imprisoned
journalists in Turkey. Soon after that, we got the chance to visit
London on business. We grabbed it and resigned as soon as we hit UK
soil.

Established in 1920, the AA was once a point of national pride. Today,
it's at the end of one of the many sets of strings in the ruling AK
Party's puppet parade. Most of Turkey's TV stations are heavily
influenced by the state, and the few opposition channels can expect to
have their licenses revoked at any time or be banned from broadcasting
key events, such as live election footage or anything that might
detract from how fantastic the government is doing.

For example, Turkey's media regulator, RTUK, fined the networks that
aired footage of last year's Gezi Park protests. Funnily enough, the
watchdog is made up of nine `elected' members nominated by political
parties'and the more seats in parliament a faction has, the more
influence it possesses.

Media outlets that aren't being hounded by RTUK can always look
forward to direct intervention from Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan
himself. In 2009, independent mogul Aydin Dogan's media group'made up
of various newspapers and TV channels, CNN Türk, and a news
agency'wasfined $2.5 billion for evading taxes. Incidentally, the
audit came just after one of the group's platforms published news on
the Lighthouse charity scandal, which saw a German court convict three
Turkish businessmen for funnelling $28.3 million into their personal
accounts.

In one recent leaked recording, Erdogan is heard asking his former
justice minister to ensure that Dogan be punished. Since then, the
Dogan empire has been bound and gagged accordingly.

Police crack down on a free speech protest in Istanbul in February.

The international media relies increasingly on local sources when
reporting domestic affairs overseas. The Gezi protests aside'which had
nearly as many `live blogs' as protesters'much of Turkey's
English-language news came via Today's Zaman, the largest
English-language newspaper in Turkey. The leadership of the Zaman
newsgroup is closely linked with the Islamic teacher and international
education mogul Fethullah Gulen, a former ally of the AK Party who now
lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania.

The Zaman media group also owns Turkish-language newspaper Zaman, the
Cihan news agency, and various other publications and websites.
Written in good, accessible English, and featuring Western humor and
Istanbul-minded opinions, Today's Zaman provided international eyes
with a window into Turkey's domestic affairs while also serving as a
pro-government mouthpiece. That status quo was upset when Erdogan and
Gulen fell out'reportedly over Gulen's influence on the country'and
the whole partnership came crashing down.

A few years and a number of leaked wiretaps later, the Zaman
newsgroup'whose top brass arereportedly members of Gulen's religious
movement'has shifted sides and started to sling mud at Erdogan.
Clearly, this would no longer work as a primary news channel for
Western journalists; the government needed a new agency that could
provide source material for the international media'one that Erdogan's
cronies had complete control over.

Enter the AA, its English-language editors, and a new director
general, Kemal Ozturk'the former press adviser to Erdogan, government
cabinet wannabe, and allegedly the proud owner of a quarter of the
agency's shares. The remaining 75 percent belong to the Treasury,
according to Aydın Ayaydın, an Istanbul deputy for the opposition
party CHP. The AA maintains it is a private company, with less than 50
percent of shares held by the treasury, and so never gets audited,
even though it receives public money. As we were told when we asked
about finances in a meeting, `Nobody really knows who owns all the
shares'they have been passed down from [former Turkish president
Mustafa] Ataturk.'

With exclusive access to ministers'some of whom could be found eagerly
posing for photographs on the blue carpet leading to the agency's
doors'reporting on domestic affairs was as simple as picking up a
phone. Sourcing and fact-checking, often the most difficult part of a
journalist's job, were also a breeze. `The foreign minister told me,
so yes, it's true''no second source needed. The domestic news editing
policy was, essentially: Don't ask questions. Ever.

When it came to foreign affairs, the AA has a more relaxed approach;
it has correspondents worldwide, and they are free to report on events
from anywhere they wanted. Of course, there were a few guidelines to
consider: Never mention the Armenian genocide, UK jihadist fighters
heading to Syria do not come via Istanbul, and Russia should be
condemned for funding the Syrian regime (but not too much, as Turkey
likes its oil and gas).

An activist throws an object at the police at a protest for internet
freedom in February.

A good example of the domestic editorial policy in action came the
morning after tapes were leaked in which you can allegedly hear
Erdogan and his son discussing how to dispose of a "significant"
amount of money. Translators went into panic mode to get the real
story out to the English-speaking world'the real story being, of
course, that the tapes had been fabricated.

It's notoriously difficult for foreign press to get an inside look
into Turkish events; even the BBC has only one official correspondent
in Istanbul. The day of the wiretapping leak, the BBC were quoting the
AA `news' as a `statement from the prime minister's office''with a
link to the AA site. Ironic as that typo is, it shows the reach the
news agency had.

According to the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) in the UK, there
are still 44 journalists being detained in Turkey for the heinous
crime of doing their jobs. Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc, who
looks after the AA, claims there are only 26 members of the press in
prison, for `such petty crimes as membership of a terrorist
organization, [or] theft.' Speaking at Chatham House in February,
Arinc said, `It is the responsibility of journalists to stay away from
crimes and violence in order not to get involved in any legal
process.'

So, basically, if protesters and police are fighting in the streets,
you'd better not report on it.

`It has a very frightening effect," said Barry White, the NUJ
representative for the European Federation of Journalists, of the
government's penchant for locking up members of the press. "It
frightens journalists into thinking that if they write something,
their editor is going to get a call from the government, which could
mean they are fired or that there is no point in writing something
because the editor won't print it anyway.'

As a result of all this, the Turkish media produces stories that come
from seemingly separate realities. Gulen's press team at Zaman have
been working furiously since December 2013 to portray Erdogan as a
corrupt dictator, while the state media are just as tirelessly working
to paint a picture of a shadowy `parallel state' that is working
beneath the surface to twist the minds and thoughts of the vulnerable
Turkish public.

One recent AA headline read, `Turkey PM on Gulen: We Will Get in Their
Cave to Catch Them.' It is this polarization of the press that leaves
a tightly squeezed no man's land of moderate news sources vulnerable
to accusations of misconduct and terrorism. Patriotism is ingrained in
Turkey's cultural psychology'Turkey has, in many ways, defined itself
by defending itself from outside powers; the threat of `foreign'
control has been a part of the country's consciousness since Ataturk's
Republic of Turkey was born in 1923.

As outsiders we take freedom of speech for granted. We became
journalists because we feel strongly that the press has a
responsibility to inform the electorate, to question the elected, and
to present the reader with correct information. We left the agency and
are telling this story for exactly these reasons.

http://www.vice.com/read/inside-erdogans-propaganda-mouthpiece