One of the signs of Turkey’s exponentially increasing importance in the international arena is the escalating inflation of free-lance foreign reporters in the country. As the presence of the foreign mainstream media in Turkey is felt more every day, young and unemployed foreigners who want to be journalists and free-lance reporters around the world rush to Turkey. Therefore, both the number of serious articles as well as misinformation multiplies.
That’s just fine… “Let them write, let it be.” Everybody is entitled to speak, or mostly write nonsense, in his/her own capacity. Besides, free lance journalism in the frame of the universal ethic rules fills a critical gap. However, personal hatred, strong political position and the know-it-all ignorance are all felt in some of these articles so much that it becomes necessary to scrutinize the background of such pieces.
FREE SHOT FROM THE BRITISH CORRESPONDENT
Let me give you one single example. The article published in the Ash Shark ul Awsat, one of the admiral ships of the Saudi financing, on October 30, 2013 is a complete disaster. The report is penned down by a British free-lancer who lives in Istanbul, Turkey. As the entire world spoke about the Marmaray Project on October 29, [an underwater tunnel connecting Asia and Europe at the Bosphorus Strait], the reporter put the Taksim protests to the center of the October 29 agenda and of the world, yet mentioned about the Marmaray in a half sentence only. Let’s say that this is the reporter’s free choice. That’s also fine… “Let them write…” But, how about her full-of-ignorance-claim that “the democratization package grant the police powers to detain people they think may be at risk of organizing a protest”? Which one shall we pick? Shall we pick that she talks about two completely separate issues as if they are one or shall we pick that she takes the detention rumor spread by some reporters which was later denied officially as a fact?
At this point, it is necessary to underline a few problems concerning some foreign free-lancers and staff-journalists working in Turkey. The first is that there is always a foreign media institution buying the aforementioned misinformation. There is demand and the buyer is ready. Any article against the government is given credit by the Western media outlets and pro-status quo media in the Middle East. Using pieces of free-lancers from the “field” is an inexpensive way of reinforcing editorial position. This method is frequently applied not only in Turkey but also in many other countries. Just build an AK Party-Islamism relation, have opinions of a few Gezi protestors and let your article be published in a media outlet that you have never dreamed of before…
A JOURNALISM STUCK IN TAKSIM
The second problem is that too much emphasis is made on, let’s say, a free lancer’s living in Istanbul. As a matter of fact, most of them live in a small world of their own, in the Cihangir-Tarlabaşı-Etiler triangle. With the outbreak of the Gezi Park protests, there is now a tragedy of journalism stuck in Taksim to the extent that their political stance and prejudice is revealed strongly in their news stories.
Yet a third example is that the circle where the free-lancers socialize mostly consists of people belonging to a particular segment of the Turkish society. There are practical reasons for this. The anti-government camp seeks for conveying their message to the world and complaining the Turkish government via these foreign reporters. This is partly the reason why they are dying for hanging around with these reporters. Just to give another example of practicality, the night-outs, or better drinking-buddies, which are important to the Westerners, are another reason why Western free-lancers socialize better with the seculars rather than conservatives. When they try to understand Turkey only through the perspective of the people they socialize
