41 Kere Masallah*
our parent newspaper, daily DUNYA celebrated
THIS WEEK, its 41st anniversary. The newspaper was established by the late Nezih Demirkent in 1980, the difficult year of the military coup. Dunya emerged as the first daily economy-focused newspaper. Demirkent built an economic journalism legacy in Turkey from the ground up. Decades later, other daily newspapers discovered the economy and inserted sections in their pages. During several cycles of crisis, the importance and the number of those pages increased gradually. Now, economy sections are the most important parts of print outlets.
More than four decades later, the legacy of Nezih Demirkent lives on in his compatriots and students at the newspaper. Dunya is the only daily economy newspaper in Turkey. The Nasil Bir Ekonomi publishing group was established by journalists that are either working for Dunya or once worked for it. It is now the publisher that sustains the legacy its own innovations.
As a young journalist, I had the chance to work with Demirkent in the middle of 1990s. It was an honor to witness at least three decades of the newspaper and the evolution of economic journalism.
The magazine you are holding in your hand is also celebrating its 200th issue in the same week with its parent publication. We are also trying to improve our content, and have now launched a website. Still, our proprietary content is on our print issues but we try to publish routine developments on our website. Also we are sending out daily newsletters about what is going on in Turkey on the economic front. We would like to urge our readers to share their criticisms and opinions about our contents on all fronts. Your ideas are important in shaping our content so feel free to e-mail to us, as noted at the top of this column.
This week you will be able to read an article by Vahap Munyar on Vodafone Turkey and its new CE• Engin Aksoy. Vodafone has been in Turkey for 15 years. It is among the largest foreign investors in Turkey. It led the way for the digital transformation of the country and its companies, helping build fiber infrastructure. Now, Vodafone’s Turkey operation ranks as a success story in the group, with the help of its CE•, who has worked for the company for many years before being named CE•. Aksoy and his team is well-equipped with impressive local talent and international expertise. You can read the details on pages 14 and 15.
And lastly, as we work our way through the worst health crisis in a century, our Executive Editor has spoken to the head of a Danish company tackling what most experts believe will be the defining crisis in human history: water. Read about what Aquaporin is doing to save humanity on page 11.
(*) The headline of this column is a praising phrase for good things and the number 41 represents “many” in essence and you probably know the meaning of “Masallah”, which stands for away from evil eyes. It is also a wish for sustainability, indeed.