Your wish is my command, dear Prime Minister

Almost one week has past since his proposal to accelerate and make it easier to shut down a paper, and Prime Minister Erdoğan has proposed another method, again entering into the territory of press freedom.

This time it wasn’t the closing of a paper. The method was not applied to false information. But what if the news is correct? The prime minister then wants to require journalists to inform offices of the governor and ministries before they write the news.

Inform the minister first
Take a look at what he said in an appeal in Ankara according to the official news agency AA: Recently a new trend unfolded. Some television channels find schools in the East, Southeast which are not heated. Instantly they start filming the private matter É later on it’s called ’shocking’ news É Instead of doing this, if you, as the press, are honest and sincere wouldn’t you call the related ministry and say ’Dear Minister, we have a problem here and wanted to let you know.’ If this problem persists then you should take it as news which I would then support and do the necessary. But what gives us a headache here is not the problem itself, its picking on people. But you won’t be able to pick on these honest people anymore. I won’t give you the opportunity to do so." If we were to refresh our memory, we’d remember the prime minister expressed similar ideas in another speech. Last April the prime minister got upset with papers revealing problems that citizens encountered at public hospitals and held a speech at a gathering of his party on April 29, 2008 saying, "One incidence is being presented as if it is the case in all hospitals. They may be working with fewer personnel and mistakes can happen, but that does not give you the right to generalize. This is emotional exploitation. The minister may have not noticed either. One other job of the press is supervision. In respect to this obligation you should call the related ministry and if the ministry does not attend to it then you call the prime minister. And if the prime minister does not attend to it then you should write about it. But do not cast a cloud on the moral value of our people."

As can be seen, we are facing the same logic and view point in the two speeches by the prime minister. These are not words said accidentally or coincidentally. On the contrary, we are talking about a repetitive thinking pattern. We are encountering a base line internalized as part of his world view. What do we see when looking at this base line? The prime minister wants journalists in line of duty to report malfunctioning to governmental attendants, the governor or minister, first and if they do not attend to it, then the journalists should make news out of it. So, the prime minister means, "Don’t report any news before reporting to us. Don’t worry, we’ll do the necessary; if not then you can write." He probably wants us to become unemployed.

His words, in their most humble terms, reflect his understanding of democracy and freedom of press and show huge gaps in his point of view. The prime minister’s proposal, if put into effect, will pave the way for political administrations to achieve supervision over what news reaches the society. Thus authorization on news to be published will pass from the press to the political administration. It wouldn’t be unfair to label this as formal censorship.

In that case, at the district level the district governor, at the state level the state governor, at the national level the ministers and prime minister, or his appointed adviser would take on this duty of direct supervision. No doubt, there are similar concepts like mentioned above, i.e. news being interchanged with the government. But they are totalitarian regimes, for example, patron type administrations, military regimes É In a military regime authoritarian commanders decide which news to publish.

It appears, the management pattern that lies in Erdoğan’s heart is not very different as well.

Excuse me, aren’t we entering the European Union with Mr. Tayyip? If not the EU, where are we headed now?



Sedat Ergin is the editor-in-chief of the daily Milliyet, in which this piece appeared on Tuesday. It was translated into English by the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review's staff