March 6, 2014

Lies, deceit and a test of the Turkish media

Özgür Küçük

Relations between human beings are based on affection, respect and trust. While honesty and telling the truth brings together the community, lies and deceit, which are the opposites of honesty and truth, eliminate respect and trust, fellowship and friendship between people and result in the loss of rights, replacing justice with persecution.

The unjust replace the just, justice is replaced with injustice. Through lies many families disintegrate, fortunes are lost, mutual feelings of trust, love and respect between people are replaced with suspicion, hatred and animosity. This causes bloodshed, even murders.

That is why our ancestors said that the liar's candle burned until the evening prayer to describe that all lies will be uncovered before too long and told of the boy who cried wolf to explain how nobody believed those who made a habit of lying and being deceitful.

After summarizing the harm incurred in terms of people and the community by the telling of lies, I want to mention the "pool media" status -- pro-government media outlets that repeat the same things -- the Turkish media has fallen into after the corruption and bribery operation which took place on Dec. 17, 2013.

The media's trial by fire

The media world is going through a tough trial following the Dec. 17 corruption and bribery operation. While a part of the media is unable to transmit the truths to their readers due to pressure from the government, another part of the media that is inspired by the "pool" aims to hide the truth with false information. The partisan media ignores the truths, concrete information and documents which have been uncovered with the corruption claims. This media does not even hint at the allegations of money hidden in homes, strongboxes, watches worth TL 700,000 as well as the audio records allegedly revealing coercion and tender negotiations.

Instead, without the basis of any information and documents attacks are launched on the Hizmet movement with allegations of a "parallel state." They do not hesitate to put unbelievable allegations into their columns about Islamic Scholar Fethullah Gülen and his supporters. News reports to the detriment of the movement, which are refuted within an hour or two, are sometimes attributed to anonymous sources supported with fabricated evidence and sometimes to individuals allegedly diagnosed with schizophrenia. Newspapers, which are transformed into black propaganda bulletins during this process, even print imaginary interviews.

The pro-government media outlets have no compunction about refuting news they have published in the past. There appears to be no harm in publishing news that conflicts with articles that have been defended in former columns of the newspapers. They are queuing up for an interview with a convict who they accused a few years ago of having the purpose of having the movement disparaged. In fact, the media has gone so far as to declare a person whose conviction for extortion has been ratified by the Supreme Court of Appeals as "innocent" and passed the ball for the crime to the "parallel" structure. When the "pool media" ran out of lies to generate they did not hesitate to grasp at the lies published in the past by other newspapers. These newspapers went so far as to publish news items which were published and refuted eight years ago. The publishing of lies is revealed by the generation of false intelligence, which is printed in newspaper columns every day and which are fictionalized from specific headquarters and published with methods which do not comply with the fundamental principles of journalism.

The lies have gone so far that never mind the evening, the truth is revealed even before dawn. However, the same lies are maintained the next day. The tragic thing is that politicians use these lies in their public rhetoric without any questions asked. Members of Parliament, ministers and even the prime minister use the news reports of the pool media as if they were truthful.

With these lies, efforts are made to convince the public of the existence of a "parallel structure." This situation, which is deplorable both in terms of the law as well as the ethics of journalism, makes way for interpretations such as "in comparison, the newspapers were more compassionate in the Feb. 28 period." Here are some examples of the lies:

LIE: A message was sent to members of the HSYK (Supreme Board of Judges and Public Prosecutors) through WhatsApp not to come to the meeting.

TRUTH: The report was denied by the justice minister. The person who allegedly sent the message in question does not even have a "WhatsApp" account.

Even Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ reacted to the headline in the Yeni Şafak daily, one of the newspapers which launched a black propaganda campaign after the corruption and bribery operation of Dec. 17: “The news which is abstract and referred to a ‘member of HSYK' without the basis of any concrete information does not portray the truth. Furthermore, the HSYK member who is mentioned in the news does not have a ‘WhatsApp' account."

LIE: EP members said "Gülen should return to Turkey and account for his actions."

TRUTH: The names in question denied having ever delivered such a statement.

Member of the European Parliament Andrew Duff said that his words about Fethullah Gülen had been distorted in the Sabah newspaper. He indicated that distorting words seemed very easy in a part of the Turkish media. Leader of the European Liberal and Democrat Reform Party Sir Graham Watson indichttps://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6649642963594784854#editor/target=post;postID=7270797237077019877;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=6;src=linkated his disappointment at the news in Sabah and said that his "statements had been distorted." The other names in the news item had no relevance with the headline. The Socialist leader Hannes Swoboda speaks about specially authorized courts; Helene Flautre speaks about Syrian refugees.

LIE: The Hizmet movement distributed the examination questions to military school.

TRUTH: Disclaimer from the General Staff: Examinations are centrally administered. We select students through interviews and physical performance tests.

Sabah published a headline that "Big brother distributed entrance examination questions to military high schools." However, according to the statement made by General Staff Directorate, examinations for military schools have been centrally administrated since 2002 by the Student Assessment, Selection and Placement Center (ÖSYM). Furthermore, it was emphasized that the selection of students was not limited to this examination, they also underwent interviews and physical fitness tests.

Published on Today's Zaman, 05 March 2014, Wednesday

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