Pressures In The Newsroom, Twists And Turns Never Stop

Michael Hedges August 4, 2021 - Follow on Twitter

Newsrooms can be rife with dissent, to put it mildly. We've all seen the movie. Some have seen it in real life. Reporters can be very intense. Editors can be outspoken. Proprietors can be savage. For details please refer to your neighborhood psychotherapist. Or, for your summertime assignment, revisit 'All The President's Men,' 'Network,' 'The Paper,' 'Absence of Malice,' 'Spotlight' the 'Good Night, and Good Luck'.

At the end of last week, Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet chief editor Aykut Küçükkaya resigned with a flourish, reported Bianet (July 30), citing pressure from the chairperson of the publisher to withdraw editorial employees from representation with the Journalists’ Union of Turkey (TGS). The issue was a pending collective bargaining negotiation. After a weekend of reflection Mr. Küçükkaya withdrew his resignation (August 1), saying his concerns have been resolved, faulting the union, praising the publisher.

Unions and proprietors are quite often at loggerheads as critical negotiations arise. Both sides stake out hard lines. Staff can be consumed by minutia. Managers in the middle find themselves torn by the tension. This story would be fairly boring without the backdrop.

Cumhuriyet has been published in Turkey for 97 years, based in Istanbul. It has been known as a leading voice for secular, modern and socially democratic Turkey. Cumhuriyet publishes several supplements, including a monthly section in Turkish of Le Monde Diplomatique. There has been a digital edition since 1998. It has been honored by several international press freedom advocates. Daily print circulation has fallen to about 20,000 copies (2020) from over 150,000 ten years earlier.

The Cumhuriyet Foundation has been the publisher since 2001, transferred by the estate of Berin Nadi, widow of founder Yunus Nadi. The Cumhuriyet Foundation was reorganized in 2018 and several staff members removed from the supervisory board, which then shifted the editorial position toward nationalism and dismissive of Kurdish rights. The chairperson is Alev Coskun, once a board member of the earlier publishing company.

Aykut Küçükkaya has been chief editor of Cumhuriyet since 2018, elected by the editorial and supervisory boards “unanimously.” He has worked for the newspaper for 27 years. He succeeded Murat Sabuncu who was tried and convicted of "spreading propaganda" along with several members of the editorial staff. His seven year sentence has been continuously appealed though the European Court of Human rights (ECtHR) ruled last November that the endless pre-trail detentions were violations of "their right to liberty and security and freedom of expression." Mr. Sabuncu succeeded Can Dundar as chief editor in 2016, who had been arrested for espionage and fled to Germany.

The Journalists' Union of Turkey was established in 1952 and currently has about a thousand members. It is affiliated with the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ). Topping its annual report, published for World Press Freedom Day (May 3), the TGS headlined "unfortunately, it's difficult to speak of progress." In the detail is says "Membership to an armed organization and conducting propaganda for a terrorist organization are the charges most commonly directed at journalists."

Every aspect of the journalistic trade has come under attack by the right-wing, nativist government of president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Press accreditation is being denied for specious reasons, causing editorial staff to lose employment, for which they can be sent to jail. Exiled reporters and editors are subject to attacks on foreign soil. Foreign funding is "regulated" to further pressure outlets. Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF) ranks Turkey 153rd of 180 in its World Press Freedom Index and it named president Erdogan a "predator of press freedom" alongside Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, Viktor Orban of Hungary, Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir Putin of Russia.

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• Hot Topics - Media in Turkey

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