Abstract
The political context for practicing free and independent journalism has always been challenging in Turkey and ever more so after the failed coup d’état of 2016. This article examines and analyzes the changes brought about by this failed coup d’état in terms of their civil, legal, and political significance for news journalism and news journalists. More specifically and based on two sets of semi-structured interviews with Turkish editors and senior journalists supported by an analysis of gray literature, we argue that between 2013 and 2018 Turkey has moved from a pre-coup repression of news journalism (2013–2016) to a post-coup oppression of news journalism (2016–2018). The former was characterized by unsystematic attacks on news journalism conducted with impunity leading to a climate of fear that made self-censorship inescapable. In contrast, the latter relied on constitutional changes and the use of law to systematically compromise the civil institution of news journalism and to cast news journalists as political enemies of the Turkish state resulting in what can be likened to a loss of their citizenship. We further argue that the development from the repression to oppression of news journalism has been ‘authorized’ and ‘legalized’ by the constitutional changes that came into force on 9 July 2018.
Highlights
Turkey has been governed by the AKP Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi/Justice and Development Party) since 2002
Co-founded by Turkey’s current President Erdoğan, it positioned itself as a pro-Western liberal party, started accession talks with the EU in 2005 and, hesitantly, undertook legal reforms with a view to increasing media freedom (Eldem, 2013; Yilmaz, 2016)
We propose to redefine repression in a more nuanced way and to distinguish it from ‘oppression’ in the following way
Summary
Turkey has been governed by the AKP Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi/Justice and Development Party) since 2002. Co-founded by Turkey’s current President Erdoğan, it positioned itself as a pro-Western liberal party, started accession talks with the EU in 2005 (which effectively broke down in 2016) and, hesitantly, undertook legal reforms with a view to increasing media freedom (Eldem, 2013; Yilmaz, 2016). After the election success of 2007, it started to exhibit illiberal tendencies which culminated in the infamous Gezi Park protest in 2013. Despite the fact that Erdoğan announced a ‘democratization reform’ on 30 September 2013, there have been no improvements regarding the freedom of the press. Compounding the problems facing the Turkish press are two important internal political struggles
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