Divided newsroom
Turkey opposition daily Cumhuriyet shaken by internal strife.
ISTANBUL: The Istanbul headquarters of Turkish opposition daily Cumhuriyet hums with the daily excitement of a busy newsroom as reporters work the phones chasing their next story.
On the wall, an old front page is proudly displayed, challenging the government. “You will not be able to take us down,” it reads.
But the apparent normality belies a simmering conflict inside the leading independent newspaper, which has been fiercely critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and seen several of its staff prosecuted and jailed.
But the root of the tumult has on this occasion not been the legal troubles under Erdogan, who has been repeatedly accused of riding roughshod over Turkish media and hampering freedom of expression.
It stems from a longstanding row between the liberal and nationalist flanks at the paper that resulted in wholesale changes at board level earlier this month.
Since then, nearly 30 journalists, including several veterans, have quit the nearly 100-year-old paper, raising fears about the stability of one of the very few dailies in Turkey that still criticises the government.
“Erdogan must be very pleased with what has happened at Cumhuriyet,” said 77-year-old writer Aydin Engin, who resigned after more than 15 years of contributions.
“Cumhuriyet was a thorn in his
side. Now it has lost its sharpness.”
Unlike many Turkish newspapers, Cumhuriyet, which means “republic”, is not owned by a business conglomerate – which can be prone to government pressure – but by an independent foundation.
On Sept 7, the paper’s nationalists, who see themselves as the inheritors of the legacy of Turkey’s secular founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, ousted a more liberal faction from the board of directors.
Critics denounced the move, which triggered a flood of resigna-
tions, as a management coup.
Even during the terror propaganda trial – which resulted in the conviction of 14 of its staff earlier this year – the two camps had been at loggerheads.
For the proponents of the traditional Kemalist line of Cumhuriyet, the editorial changes of the last few years which brought in more proEuropean and more pro-Kurdish voices were a heresy.
The ideological battle for the heart of the daily was exposed when 17 of its staff went on trial last year on “terror” charges.
Members of the ousted team have accused the authorities of a “palace revolution” supported by a pro-Erdogan judiciary aimed at ushering in changes at the newspaper.
But the new board denies any collusion with the government to take over the daily.
Engin said he believed it might be possible for a liberal team to return “one day” to the head of Cumhuriyet because, after all, “the history of this newspaper is full of twists and turns, for better or worse”.