Turkish media: Caught in the wheels of power?

With domestic media outlets under fire for ignoring massive street protests, we examine media ownership in Turkey.

Turks first took to the streets on May 28 to demonstrate against the redevelopment of a park in Istanbul. Over the course of a week the non-violent demonstration escalated into large-scale anti-government protests. The subsequent crackdown by the authorities turned violent but much of Turkey’s domestic media ignored the story. With the vacuum in mainstream media coverage, protesters turned to social media to get their story out but this unfettered source of news potentially inflamed the situation. Our News Divide this week assesses what the domestic coverage of the protests – or the lack of - says about media ownership in Turkey and the relations those companies have with Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s government. Talking us through the story is Yavuz Baydar from Sabah newspaper; Yasemine Congar, the former deputy editor of Taraf newspaper; Andrew Finkel, the auther of Turkey: What everyone needs to know; Ziya Meral, an academic and writer; and Mustafa Akyol, a columnist for Hurriyet.