Pınar Gayıp
In Turkey, journalists are increasingly facing financial pressure from the government in addition to escalating judicial harassment. These financial constraints, coupled with opportunistic media executives and challenging industry conditions, are leading to widespread job insecurity and poverty among journalists.
Pınar Gayip reports that Turkish journalists are subjected not only to police brutality, judicial harassment, and imprisonment but also to severe financial pressures. These include salaries at or below the poverty line, financial and advertising bans on institutions not aligned with the government, layoffs due to closures or downsizing of media organizations, and worsening conditions in the industry. Recent instances such as the suspension of Evrensel newspaper's official announcement and ad publication rights, layoffs at bianet and KRT due to downsizing, and the dismissal of striking Sputnik employees last August illustrate these challenges.
Exploitative practices by foreign media
The treatment of journalists by organizations like AFP further exemplifies these challenges. Bülent Kılıç, a seasoned war correspondent with 22 years of experience, was dismissed by AFP without due compensation. Kılıç described the dismissal process, stating that he was let go without justification soon after discussing his lack of motivation with the company. He was denied severance and rights, and AFP cited undisclosed "moral reasons" for terminating his contract. Kılıç labeled AFP's approach as colonialist, criticizing its willingness to dismiss a Turkish employee without compensation.
Globally challenging times for journalism
Banu Tuna, General Secretary of the Journalists' Union of Turkey (TGS), spoke to MLSA about the difficult period journalism is facing worldwide, particularly in Turkey. She noted that while some believe journalism might disappear in the medium term, the profession needs to reinvent itself amidst growing challenges. These include the rise of freelance journalism, the decline of print media, difficulty in creating new revenue models, and readers' reluctance to pay for news. Tuna emphasized that in Turkey, media is polarized between government-aligned organizations functioning like press releases and small, independent/opposition publications struggling with limited resources. This polarization is a significant factor in increasing unemployment and layoffs in the industry.
Dilemma of digital news revenue
Journalist Çağla Üren, focusing on media and technology, highlighted the need to distinguish between genuine downsizing and pretextual excuses in the industry. She mentioned instances like Sputnik, where journalists engaged in union activities were dismissed under the guise of "economic reasons" while being replaced by new hires. Üren pointed out that globally, newsrooms are shrinking, and many journalists are losing their jobs due to a global capitalist crisis impacting vulnerable sectors like media.
Digital news organizations struggle to establish a sustainable revenue model. While some, like The New York Times and The Washington Post, have successfully implemented paywalls, others like The Independent choose selective paywall content. Completely free sites like The Guardian also exist. In Turkey, experiments with paywalls are beginning, but it remains to be seen if the Turkish audience, accustomed to free content, will adapt to subscription models.
Challenges of online news sites and misinformation
Üren also highlighted the search for a viable digital revenue model, with many countries turning to Facebook for a share of advertising revenue. She noted that while Facebook has agreed to this in many countries, it has not done so in Canada, leading to a ban on Canadian news content on the platform.
In Turkey, the few remaining print newspapers are struggling to survive, and online ad revenues are insufficient to support quality journalism. This leads to a demand for relatively inexperienced editors who can quickly post news without thorough verification, increasing the spread of misinformation. The focus in online newsrooms shifts from serving readers to pleasing advertisers, reducing news to mere numbers in click counts and deteriorating news quality.
An example of misinformation was the widespread but unverified news in Turkey about 15,000 death sentences during the 2022 uprisings in Iran. Despite the original Iranian news sources not mentioning executions, Turkish mainstream media incorrectly translated and published these as execution news. Fact-checking organization Teyit.org later debunked this misinformation, identifying 88 news items containing false information in March 2024 alone.
