Turkey Government and Media
Government
Government Type: Presidential Republic
Leader: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Political Party: Justice and Development Party, the A.K.P.
Political Position: Populism, Islamic Conservative
Media
World Press Freedom Rank: Turkey 157/180 (2019)
According to Reporters Without Borders Turkey is “the world’s biggest jailer of professional journalists,” outside of Iran and Russia.
Government Influence on Media: The Government influences media through Basın İlan Kurumu (BİK) (The Press Bulletin Authority) which is not transparent and according to Reuters Institute, “The agency has the power to end the distribution of advertising to any newspaper as a sanction whenever it wants by claiming a violation of media ethics.” For example, the BIK has imposed restrictions regarding the distribution of advertisements to BirGün and Evrensel (opposition dailies critical of the current government) Further, all the large daily newspapers are owned by corporations such as Demirören Group which owns Milliyet, Hürriyet, Posta, and Vatan. The Albayrak Group is the owner of Daily Yeni Safak and the Kalyon Group (Turkuvaz Medya) owns Sabah and Takvim dailies. These conglomerates also have construction, energy and infrastructure business divisions which heavily depend upon the government for public contracts. This could lead to pro-corporate bias in support of the government.
Left vs. Right Bias: How we rate the bias of media sources