The Turkish media is facing the wrath of a government that is using a coup attempt to root out the opposition. Under the cover of an ongoing state of emergency, journalists are being hounded and locked up, media outlets are being closed and the free press is gradually being bought by government-affiliated businesses. Yet, out of this despair comes a glimmer of hope, a silent revolution of new media, finding ways around the repression to get the message out. And it’s not just in Turkey. Eighty-seven percent of the world’s population lives in a country without a free press. As media censorship spreads across Europe, resilient journalists are bypassing the mainstream to raise their voices from brand-new platforms. [...]
Turkey has long suffered from state interference in the media, but matters have taken a steep downward spiral since the attempted coup of 2016, when a faction within the Turkish armed forces tried to wrest power from government institutions. This worrying trend continues in 2018, as a crisis in the judiciary weakens the media still; in January, two high-profile journalists remained in prison even after Turkey’s constitutional court ordered their release. Between January 20 and February 26, 648 people were detained because of their posts on social media. Under mounting international pressure, German-Turkish journalist Deniz Yücel was finally released. But he had been held in pre-trial detention for 367 days, without any charges. In another crushing blow, 13 journalists who worked for an opposition newspaper were sentenced to prison on April 26 for “aiding and abetting terror organisations without being a member”.
Another worrying trend is the state seizures of media outlets, which are subsequently bought by pro-government businesses, creating what has been termed a ‘pool media’ – newspapers all churning out exactly the same pro-government stories. In what some see as a death blow to Turkish independent media, in March, the Doğan media group, owners of the last credible opposition newspaper and television channels, was bought by a business conglomerate with government ties. In reaction to this trend, one young Istanbullite told me that she now avoids the news, as she considers it all to be government propaganda; trust in the mainstream media is at an all-time low. [...]
Media oppression has swept across European borders, an insidious creep into the new normal. As the prospect of EU enlargement fades and it focuses on achieving stability over internal reforms, its influence is waning in much of eastern Europe, while Russian influence is on the rise. At the same time, fake news websites increase media noise, and as well as the usual political and financial pressures, reporters are having to deal with being labelled as spies and foreign mercenaries.
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