The Newsroom as an Open Air Prison: Corruption and Self-Censorship in Turkish Journalism

Abstract

The year 2014 will go down as the annus horribilis of Turkish journalism. It began in the wake of two police operations in the last days of December 2013, massive graft probes into the affairs of four ministers of the majority Justice and Development Party (AKP) government. Those touched by the scandals included a number of businessmen with close connections to the government, bureaucrats and bank managers, but also Bilal Erdoğan, the son of then-prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Of even greater concern is that the investigations appeared to suggest that senior government figures were engaged in sanctions-busting against Iran, and that these senior figures had links to financiers who laundered funds for al Qaeda. The files compiled by law enforcement and prosecutors were a burning fuse: They claimed to expose a vast network of organized crime, with evidence of bribery, abuse of power and widespread corruption at the very highest echelons of power.