Notes

In this article you will find a lot of information about the ethical problems of the media in Turkey and also what are they proposals for solutions. In Turkey, most media outlets are owned by industrialists and business people with close ties to the government. In many media outlets, truth and accuracy are long gone. There have been cases of fake reports, fake experts, and even fake interviews. Accountability in media in Turkey is not strong, and media often blames others for fake images.
Writing about ethics, especially in the context of journalism is not an easy task mostly because the concept itself has become a cliche that many people believe that there is not much left to say about it. The problem, however, is that many of us forget why in the first place, journalism (more than many other professions) is expected to be an ethical practice. Why Ethics is Crucial for Journalism Journalism is seen as the fourth estate due to two main reasons: Firstly, journalism is expected to inform the public so that they can participate in the political decision-making process as informed citizens, not automata following the orders of a particular elite nor manipulated masses that do what they are expected to do. And secondly, journalism is the watchdog of the democratic system which checks whether the three other estates, the parliament, the government, and the courts are doing their jobs properly or not. Due to those roles of journalism that are essential for a democratic political system to function properly, journalism can be said to occupy a unique position in the socio-political and socio-economical system we live in. Journalism as a unique profession relies on ethics more than many other occupations because the two main roles, informing the public and being the watchdog of the system, require an ethical core in the way this profession is done. In this sense, ethics is not a trivial matter for journalism but a core issue, probably the most important issue that not only academics, and critics of journalism but all journalists should take into consideration in all working processes and decision making processes related to journalism. Five Pillars of Ethical Journalism The problem here is that ethical journalism is easier to say that is done. The first problem is that it is not always that easy to define what ethical journalism is and more importantly, even if you know what it exactly is, and even if you want to do this ethical way of journalism, there may be various internal and external factors that harden the process and sometimes may even make it impossible to do ethical journalism. The first problem can be addressed easily: The five pillars of ethical journalism according to the Ethical Journalism Network are: Truth and Accuracy, that journalism should give true and accurate information so that the ideal of informed citizens can be reached. Independence, that journalists and the media outlets they work should be independent of political and economic power centres such as the government or industrialists. Fairness and Impartiality, that journalists should cover the news in a way that does not have a particular bias towards a particular political or economic power and the coverage should give voices to all sides of the story so that the whole issue can be understood from all relevant perspectives possible. The Case of Turkey in Terms of Ethics in Journalism The case in Turkey, according to the criteria counted above is highly problematic that; Truth and accuracy are long gone in many media outlets, even among the ones that have a long history and not necessarily associated with political propaganda. Most of the media is owned by industrialists and business people that are known to have close ties to the government. Fairness and impartiality are not a common practice in Turkey that most of the TV coverage is biased towards the government and even among the opposition it is not a common practice to give the perspective of the 'other side'. Humanity is also problematic that privacy is not protected, dignity can be ignored, and sometimes the coverage may lead to direct harm to people. Accountability has probably never been a strong aspect of media in Turkey that providing sources, giving credit to the original owners of a piece are not common practices and when asked about the circulation of a fake image, for instance, most media blames others but continues to use the image. Structural Factors Causing Ethical Problems As stated above, the ethical problems of media in Turkey can be defined without much difficulty; however, it is more crucial to define the internal and external factors that harden the process of ethical journalism, or in other words the reasons for those problems. For the case of Turkey, some factors are unique to the country's political, sociological and economic climate but many others are problems that are existent in the rest of the world too. The global problems are twofold: The first one is that the perception of the need for journalism among the public is low: social media, post-truth, identity politics, populism, etc diminished the necessity of journalism and truth. Specific problems for Turkey The first one is political pressure that it is not easy to do ethical journalism when you are expected to do propaganda or at least not cover anything against the structures that are in power which is mostly the case in Turkey.