Authors Doğan Akın is a graduate of Ankara University’s Political Science Department. He began his journalistic career at Cumhuriyet daily in 1987 and in 1999 became the news director of Milliyet newspaper. In 2008 he became the publishing director of the Doğan-Burda Magazine Group and founded the group’s first online news portal, Tempo24. In 2009, he founded T24, an online independent newspaper where he is currently editor-in-chief. Suncem Koçer (Assoc. Prof.) is an anthropologist of media and communication and a faculty member at the Faculty of Communication at Kadir Has University. Her research focuses on ethnography of media, political communication, news media, and politics of culture in Turkey and the Middle East. Koçer has also worked as a media producer. She co-produced two documentary films and worked as editor and anchor at İMC TV. She also wrote weekly columns for daily Evrensel. Murat Önok (Asst. Prof.) is an assistant professor at Koç University Law School. He holds a BA degree and Ph.D. from Dokuz Eylül University, Izmir. Önok’s fields of research are criminal law, human rights law and international criminal law. He has also taught public international law and criminology. Önok also currently serves as the Vice-President of the Turkish Press Council. Ceren Sözeri (Assoc. Prof.) is a faculty member at the Communications Department of Galatasaray University. She earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degree from that same university and received her Ph.D. from Marmara University. She writes on issues of 002 political economy of the media, media policies, freedom of the press, ethical issues, as well as discrimination and hate speech in traditional and online media in Turkey. She has been the Ethical Journalism Network’s (EJN) representative in Turkey since 2015 and a columnist for Evrensel daily. Tuğba Tekerek is a graduate of the Management Department of Boğaziçi University where she also completed the Modern Turkish History master’s program. She started her journalism career in 2006 at Milliyet, before working for the daily Taraf. In recent years she has worked as freelance reporter for both Turkish language media and international outlets including The New York Times and Foreign Policy. Aslı Tunç (Professor) teaches at the Media and Communication Systems Department at Istanbul Bilgi University. She has a BA in communication sciences from Istanbul University and an MA in film and television studies from Anadolu University. She received her Ph.D. in media and communications at Temple University in Philadelphia in 2000. She has written numerous academic articles, book chapters and country reports on media and democracy, digital activism, social media, and freedom of expression. Sarphan Uzunoğlu (Assoc. Prof.) currently works for UiT The Arctic University of Norway, at the Department of Language and Culture, section for Media and Documentation Studies. His PhD thesis considered the precariousness of labor in Turkey’s journalism industry. He is responsible editor of Journo.com.tr and contributes to several digital platforms such as P24, Creative Disturbance, and Global Voices. P24 Media Library This book is published by Punto24 Platform for Independent English Publication No 1 Journalism for the purpose of professional research, education and solidarity. It is not to be sold or distributed for Media Self-Regulation in Turkey: commercial purposes. Challenges, Opportunities, Suggestions Doğan Akın The publication of and research undertaken to produce Suncem Koçer Murat Önok this book were realized with assistance provided as part of Ceren Sözeri the EU UNESCO-funded Project “Building Trust in Media in Tuğba Tekerek South East Europe and Turkey.” Aslı Tunç Sarphan Uzunoğlu The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout this publication do not imply the Editor expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of Yasemin Çongar UNESCO concerning the legal status of any country, Fatma Demirelli Seçil Epik territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The ideas Book Design and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the Bülent Erkmen authors; they are not necessarily those of UNESCO and do not commit the Organization. Pre-Print Preparation Mehtap Genç, P24 This publication was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility 003 1st Print: December 2018 of its authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Printing and Cover: European Union. Depo Print Dijital Baskı ve Reklam Sanayii ve Tic. Ltd. Şti. 4. Levent Oto Sanayi Sitesi Ahmet bayman Cad. No: 3 Kapı No:5 Seyrantepe/İstanbul T: +90 212 325 12 07 Certificate No: 12055 P24 MEDIA LIBRARY Punto24 Bağımsız Gazetecilik Platformu Kıraathane İstanbul Edebiyat Evi, Asmalı Mescit Mahallesi, Meşrutiyet Caddesi, Yemenici Abdüllatif Sokak No: 1, Beyoğlu 34430 İstanbul e-posta: [email protected] www.platform24.org www.twitter.com/P24Punto24 tr-tr.facebook.com/ Punto24 Doğan Akın Suncem Koçer Murat Önok Ceren Sözeri Tuğba Tekerek Aslı Tunç Sarphan Uzunoğlu Media Self- 004 Regulation in Turkey: Challenges, Opportunities, Suggestions Editors’ Introduction: A General Overview of Turkey’s Media Landscape and a Framework for Self-Regulation > 006 Yasemin Çongar, Fatma Demirelli, Seçil Epik Freedom and Ethics: Is One Possible Without the Other? > 019 Ceren Sözeri Pointing the Compass in the Right Direction: Examples of Self-Regulation from Around the World > 050 Aslı Tunç Press Councils as Organ of Self-Regulation: Turkish Example in Light of Comparative Applications > 075 R. Murat Önok In Turkey, the Office of Ombudsman Also Has Its Limits > 121 Tuğba Tekerek Regulation and Self-Regulation in Television in Turkey > 155 Suncem Koçer Self-Regulation in Internet Media: Problems and Possibilities > 195 005 Doğan Akın CONTENTS Between Self-Censorship and Self-Regulation: Journalism in a Gray but New Media > 237 Sarphan Uzunoğlu Editors’ Introduction: A General Overview of Turkey’s Media Landscape and a Framework for Self-Regulation This study, carried out in the framework of the EU-UNESCO supported project “Building Trust in Media in South East Europe and Turkey,” was conducted among the ruins of what is left of a media landscape in Turkey. The State of Emergency (SoE) – declared on July 21, 2016 in the aftermath of the failed coup attempt of July 15, then reviewed and extended seven times in a row every three months – lasted for two full years, before ending on July 19, 2018. The SoE had a direct impact on media institutions and media workers and nurtured an atmosphere of fear, intimidation and habits of self-censorship and thus the main component of the detritus we describe. Under the SoE, it became harder for media institutions as a whole to fulfill their fundamental democratic function. Self- regulation of media became a virtual impossibility. 006 That said, the SoE all on its own was not the proverbial earthquake responsible for so much destruction; we think it is more realistic to see the present situation as not the result of a single, sudden event but the culmination of the series of jolts, wrecking balls and never-ending landslides within the sector. It is the result of structural problems within Turkey’s media that have worsened over the last decade. A Media That Is Not Free, Not Independent and Very Much Polarized The long-standing structural problems of Turkey’s media can be summarized as follows: 1) Throughout the history of the Republic, freedom of the press and of expression has never achieved the dimensions nor been able to establish foundations as envisaged by the European Convention of Human Rights. 2) Major media outlets have been in the hands of corporations with colossal investments in other sectors, resulting in an ownership structure that renders free competition difficult and which at times is paramount to monopolization. This in turn allows very few media outlets to operate independently of governments and entrenched interests. 3) As a result of the first and second points above, media and especially news media has never fully gained the trust of society – the mechanisms of accountability, transparency and self-regulation that would be both possible and compulsory in a relationship of trust have never been put in place. In the Fall of 2018, as we are about to send this book to 007 press, all three of these problems have become even more ubiquitous. We have reached a point where it almost makes no sense to talk about freedom and independence of the media, let alone of people’s trust in media. We think the diagnosis made by Freedom House’s annual report Freedom in the World, which covers political rights and civil liberties, also holds true in the most profound sense for freedom of expression and the press in Turkey: the Washington, D.C.-based watchdog organization in its 2018 report downgraded Turkey to “Not Free” from “Partly Free,” thus placing the country among nations in this lowly category for the first time since the inaugural publication of the report in 1999. The report based its diagnosis on several basic observations, noting that: “[Erdoğan’s] response to the July 2016 coup attempt has become a sprawling witch hunt, resulting in the arrest of some 60,000 people, the closure of over 160 media outlets, and the imprisonment of over 150 journalists.” Similarly, the 2018 World Press Freedom Index of the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) saw Turkey fall to the rank of 157 among 180 countries, down two from the previous year. As part of our monitoring work under “Expression Interrupted” – a joint project of Punto24 and Article 19 that is supported by the E.U. – we established that at least 175 media workers were in prison as a result of their media-related activities at the beginning of November 2018.