Billionaire media owner, Prime Minister clash, blackmail charged

Michael Hedges September 15, 2008

Politicians and media owners endure each other, often uneasily. Occasional snipping, back and forth, is healthy. Pushed to frenzy, these clashes never end well.

When the International Press Institute (IPI) called (September 12) for retraction of an ultimatum directed at Turkish media company Dogan Media Group the country’s prime minister told the press freedom monitor to mind its own business.  Turkish media has been “harassed and blackmailed” by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, said the IPI statement.

“This International Press Institute gave me its own kind of ultimatum,” said Erdogan, stumping up the rhetoric before supporters (September 13). “So I ask them, who do you think you are to issue me an ultimatum?”

Prime Minister Erdogan did, in fact, issue Dogan Media Group chairman Aydin Dogan an ultimatum (September 8). "Disclose what lies beneath this aggression," Erdogan said in a speech this week. "I give you a week. If you don't then I will."

Fair enough, said Mr. Dogan, hours later: “Don't wait a week, disclose what you know now. This is political blackmail.”

This sounds like the tit-for-tat between the British government and the BBC a few years ago.

Prime Minister Erdogan is most recently upset by extensive coverage in Turkey by CNN Turk and newspaper Hürriyet – owned by Dogan Group – of a corruption trial in Germany implicating State broadcasting council (RTUK) chairman Zahid Akman. A law recently enacted in Turkey prevents investigations into RTUK officials without the PM’s permission. One allegation against Akman – there are several – says he illegally held paid positions in Germany while RTUK president. Another allegation has Akman funneling money from a religious charity in Germany to Islamic television station Kanal7 in Turkey.

Mr. Dogan charges that a terrestrial television license for CNN Turk has been frozen. Indeed, it was PM Erdogan rather than the RTUK announcing denial of the TV license.

Then PM Erdogan snapped back about a land deal and Mr. Dogan’s request for special consideration. Add to that, a deputy of PM Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) asked that old charges of newsprint smuggling against Dogan be reopened.

Fierce exchanges between Turkey’s political leaders and its media are hardly new. An exhaustive explaination by Sunday’s Zaman reporter Ercan Yavuz (September 14) blames everybody; dissing journalists as “eager to act on behalf of their bosses,” media owners “petty wars” and politicians creating “golden business opportunities. In return for the support by media owners, administrations started giving incentives and loans.”

In other words, this is all about the money. Yavuz also blamed foreigners, foreign companies spending large sums of money in advertising. The equation (business model?) for Turkish media has changed from politicians handing envelopes filled with cash in return for favorable coverage to media owners ignoring the politicians’ demands.

If this were not such a typical narrative – media owners and politicians snapping at each other – outrage would be appropriate. Politicians always seek control of media. Oppressive politicians always seek oppressive control.