Country Report: Information Network
Turkey – Jules Albat
- Hürriyet Daily News is a Turkish newspaper who publishes articles in English. This newspaper is owned by the Doğan Media Group which is the media group of a huge conglomerate created by the Turkish billionaire Aydın Doğan. This financial group has political, financial and societal interests which are defended by the media group. Consequently, the newspaper’s view reflects the views of one of the richest man in Turkey. However, the newspaper reports on extremely different subjects from economy, political opinions to local issues. According to this website (and to wikipedia), Hürriyet is often categorized by its left and secular views which are nowadays in opposition to the opinions of Turkey’s main party, the AKP. (https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/hurriyet-daily-news/) This daily newspaper’s website is updated constantly with articles. I will subscribe to their RSS feed (http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/rss.aspx) and I will integrate it to my daily news feed which I read every morning. I chose this source because it offered a liberal perspective to internal Turkish issues.
- Daily Sabah is the website of a daily Turkish newspaper who also publishes in English. It is a very recent newspaper (founded in 2014) and it was labelled as a propaganda tool of the Turkish government by many observers. This might be strange to follow a newspaper which can’t be appraised for its objectivity. However, let’s not forget that Erdogan’s party is the biggest political force in Turkey and that they got 40.87% of the popular vote during the last election.[1]. We can’t disregard the opinions of this Party. Daily Sabah is an excellent choice to follow the opinion of the government itself.
The newspaper is updated daily and reports on approximately the same subjects as the previous source of information. Again, I will subscribe to their RSS feed. I chose this newspaper so I could have the opposite perspective of Hürriyet Daily News.
- Turquie News is a French independent internet-only media about Turkey. It specializes in forum discussions and opinion columns of various members of the civil society. It is written in French and the organization is located in France (which means they have more freedom of speech than if they were in Turkey). This is why I chose this new “media” because it seems freer than the two previous sources, and it has various opinions from different members of the society. The website isn’t updated daily, but there is a new article at least two to three times per week. It also has many press packs on diverse topics. As always I will add their RSS feed to my daily news consumption (RSS link). I chose this source because it has opinions who cannot be persecuted because they were published in France. I like that the opinions there are mostly dissident.
- Finding my social media source has been difficult because most social medias in Turkey are under attack. YouTube was banned for a long time and when riots begin social media access is impossible. Moreover, most Turkish people write their Tweets or their social media posts in Turkish which I can’t read. This is why I decided to look at French people who lived in Turkey and who tweet about Turkish matters. Fatih Karakaya is a freelance journalist who specializes on Turkish matter. He posts daily in French and in Turkish (which I am learning so it will also make me practice Turkish). He is a left leaning ecologist journalist. He retweets interesting stories and opinions on Turkey. I will follow him on Twitter. I don’t really know how to use twitter and I can’t promise that I will go on twitter often. However I check my RSS feed 4 or 5 times a day. Thanks to https://twitrss.me/ I could subscribe to the rss feed of his tweets so that I will never fail to check his tweets.
- My data source is turkstat, a government-based website which provides statistics on many subjects such as the economy, the demography, etc. Even if the website is from the government, statistics are numbers which can’t be changed. It compiles data on Turkey. I chose this website as my data source because it seems to have an exhaustive number of statistics. The website only has raw data and is updated when it has new stats to publish. Whenever I will be doubtful of the data I will use this website to check the truth.
- My last source is the Turkey Radio Television (TRT) which is a radio from the government of Turkey. It has programs in 26 languages including English and French. It has daily news on international and Turkish matters. According to Wikipedia TRT aims to “enhance the understanding of the possibilities Turkey and Turkic republics may possess or take advantage of in various fields through the programs aiming at the Caucasus and central Asia.”[2] It gives the government’s opinions on its different policy programs. I chose this source because after hearing different radio programs this one was the best radio in English language that was based in Turkey. (I think this radio is also aimed at all the Turkish emigrants which I think gives an interesting perspective – How should a Turkish emigrant think about Turkish foreign policies.) I will try to listen to the news programs each time I listen to my podcasts feed ( which I do daily before falling asleep).
Searching sources for my information network has not been an easy task. Journalism has been under attack in Turkey. Many journalists have been sent to prison because of their views. Social Medias are also not safe even if Turkish people use it a lot. It was easy to find pro Turkish sources in English. However, it was difficult to find my social media and new media sources. One is a free and independent website based in France. The other one is a freelance French journalist who lives in Turkey. I learned that someone that is living in Turkey would have difficulties to follow dissident opinions since journalists are being locked up. However, they may have access to Turkish language out of state who share dissident view, however I am not proficient enough in Turkish to find these websites. I will try progress enough so that I could read Turkish news in Turkish in March for the next draft.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_general_election,_June_2015
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRT_T%C3%BCrk