TURKEY: Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan confirms he called media boss to demand coverage changes

Record ID: 217702

  • Title: TURKEY: Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan confirms he called media boss to demand coverage changes
  • Date: 18th February 2014
  • Summary: ANKARA, TURKEY (RECENT - FEBRUARY 11, 2014) (REUTERS) TURKISH PRIME MINISTER RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN HOLDING A NEWS CONFERENCE WITH HIS SPANISH COUNTERPART MARIANO RAJOY (SOUNDBITE) (Turkish) TURKISH PRIME MINISTER TAYYIP ERDOGAN SAYING: "Yes indeed, I called. It's apparent. I only issued a reminder and. I conveyed a reminder to those individuals regarding a TV caption. Ther
  • Embargoed: 5th March 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Turkey
  • Country: Turkey
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA3GL64TS0V069SI0EB2Q1XBI2S
  • Story Text: Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan admitted he called a senior executive of a private media conglomerate Ciner Yayin Holding to demand one of its news channels, Haberturk TV, remove captions of a speech by an opposition leader
    Recordings were leaked on the Internet which purported to show executives from Haberturk altering coverage, manipulating an opinion poll and sacking reporters under government pressure.
    One of the audio files that was posted on social media anonymously, purportedly shows Erdogan calling the deputy chairman of Ciner Yayin, Mehmet Fatih Sarac in June 2013 and urging him to remove captions quoting the leader of the opposition Nationalist Movement Party.
    "Understood sir, as you say," the senior executive replies.
    The summer protests presented one of the biggest challenges to Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's rule since his Islamist-rooted AK Party first came to power a decade ago, spiralling out of a demonstration in late May against plans to redevelop an Istanbul park into a broader show of defiance against his perceived authoritarianism.
    At a news conference on Tuesday (February 11), Erdogan acknowledged calling the media boss while on an official visit to Morocco in June to discuss its coverage of comments by an opposition leader, but said he only did so to draw attention to the fact that he was being insulted.
    "Yes indeed, I called. It's apparent. I only issued a reminder and. I conveyed a reminder to those individuals regarding a TV caption. There were insults against us, against a Prime Minister who was abroad. So I called them regarding that speech and they took the necessary measures." Erdogan said.
    Leader of Nationalist Movement Party Devlet Bahceli likened Erdogan's call to 'a murder of democracy'.
    "Prime Minister Erdogan, who can't even tolerate TV captions on the stance of Nationalist Movement Party, intervened in a way that is only used by autocratic administrations....This is a murder of democracy" he said.
    Editor in Chief of Haberturk newspaper, Fatih Altayli, did not comment directly on all of the leaks - though he said the opinion poll recording, which included his own voice, was taken out of context - but admitted several journalists were fired under government pressure.
    "Some of our colleges have been fired from here by the direct order of the boss. But this happened in all newspapers, not only us. If you look at mainstream Turkish newspapers like Hurriyet, Milliyet and us, you will see that many popular columnists were fired from these outlets." said Altayli.
    One of them, a well-known journalist who was fired from Haberturk newspaper in 2009 only a month after being transferred there as a senior political correspondent, has decried government pressure on media and said journalists cannot even ask questions to Turkish leaders anymore.
    "You can no longer find many journalists asking questions. The most important duty of a journalist is to ask questions on the story. Today the ability of asking a question has become an extraordinary asset" said political journalist Veli Toprak.
    Erdogan faces one of the greatest challenges of his 11-year rule as he battles a graft scandal he sees as orchestrated to unseat him, triggering an open feud with an influential U.S.-based cleric whose followers say they number in the millions.
    He has reacted by reassigning thousands of police officers and hundreds of prosecutors in an effort to cleanse the influence of the cleric, Fethullah Gulen, and by seeking tighter controls over the Internet, actions his critics say highlight his authoritarian instincts.
    Erdogan's AK Party remains by far Turkey's most popular, controlling most of the country, and he is widely expected to emerge either as president or prime minister for a fourth term from an election cycle starting with local voting in March.
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