May 3 is World Press Freedom Day…
So, is the press free today?
Or can the press be free?
You must have heard many statements about the day.
Especially now, on the eve of the elections, our country's politicians have become the biggest advocates of press freedom …for some reason, they think they sound convincing when they make statements about press freedom.
In any case, I think it is worth getting to the heart of the matter. First of all, it is very difficult for the press to be free. For it to be possible to speak of press freedom, the press must be economically free. In our country, with the exception of one or two media organizations, there are no media outlets that are economically self-sufficient.
Our media are steered—and even controlled—by both companies and business circles, and politicians.
For example, when you are going to report a story, you have to ask yourself: will the story affect the company that advertises with you? Otherwise, your income will be cut off. Your advertiser has to be happy for you to have a chance of staying afloat. This is why stories are not written about companies that have become almost monopolies; they cannot be covered. Those companies place plenty of ads so that their own interests, rather than the public interest, are served.
You also have to be careful with political stories. If you anger someone, you will not receive the advertisements placed by the State, and you will find yourself on the brink of a serious crisis. Or the media owner’s other business activities may suddenly grind to a halt. Before you know it, the press has stopped holding power to account.
Instead of the public interest, politicians’ interests are being served.
Over time, this structure has brought us to a point where, in our country’s media, it is not only the interests of media owners that are at stake, but also the personal interests of press workers. This is because press workers have been stripped of their economic freedom. Like a captain focused on saving his own ship, each worker has been forced to think about their own future. The process of reporting a story or writing an article pushes workers to consider these balances of power.
This is the general state of our media. Of course, within our media there are owners and workers who are different from the examples we have given.
We will continue to follow them with confidence…
Apart from all this, technological advances in our age have given rise to a new kind of media.
All the elements known as social media have given people the opportunity to create their own media networks. Today, we can learn instantly about any event, anywhere.
And yet this new kind of media has serious shortcomings when it comes to reliability. Because of this, it may perhaps never overtake traditional media (even if traditional media is not very reliable). On the other hand, as has happened in Turkey, this new kind of media is sometimes subjected to attempts to block it. In other words, the threat to freedom also applies to social media.
Ultimately, whatever form it takes, every kind of media will always be subject to attempts by certain circles to suppress and restrict it. The media, meanwhile, will continue to stand against all this and fight for freedom. For these reasons, press freedom will always remain an unattainable utopia.