Turks look to alternative media as news landscape shrinks
ISTANBUL: It’s not an obvious location for a media organisation. A gritty area dominated by car repair workshops in the backstreets of Istanbul. There’s no sign outside – just a photocopied sheet of paper pinned to the door requesting silence: “Broadcast in Progress”.
Welcome to the headquarters of Turkish broadcaster Medyascope, an almost threeyear-old alternative voice in an increasingly constricted media landscape in Turkey and an example of what new media can offer even in tough circumstances.
The door swings open to reveal a surprisingly standard television studio with a desk and coloured background.
A team of young editors are glued to their laptops around a large table, whispering excitedly, preparing the next broadcast.
Medyascope, which was founded in 2015 by leading Turkish journalist Rusen Cakir, does not broadcast through satellite let alone terrestrial TV, but rather via new media like Facebook, YouTube and Periscope.
Every weekday it presents several hours of live debate from voices across the political spectrum with a freedom increasingly absent from the major news channels in Turkey under the rule of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Awarded the Free Media Pioneer Award by the International Press Institute (IPI) in 2016, its importance has grown as ownership changes and increasingly adverse conditions for reporters have limited the media spectrum, encouraging prominent Turkish journalists to join the channel and frustrated viewers to watch it.
And with Turkey heading for presidential and parliamentary elections on June 24 at a time when journalists complain of a lack of pluralism in traditional media dominated by coverage of Erdogan, its voice is ever more important.
“There are no other channels left in Turkey, where journalists like myself, with a mainstream media background, could work today,” said presenter Isin Elicin, formerly a prominent anchor on the NTV news channel.
“The mainstream media are not broadcasting news in the way that people need to be informed.
“They look for sources that do alternative but independent, objective journalism. And they find us,” she said.