'The trouble in Turkey' | RISJ Global Journalism Seminar with Kemal Göktaş, editor-in-chief Kisa Dalga

12:30PM Feb 2, 2022

Speakers:

Meera Selva

Kemal Goktas

Keywords:

turkey

akp

journalists

government

turkish

support

media

kurdish

opposition

podcast

question

journalism

problem

aragon

bureaucracy

power

party

people

country

establish

Hello, and welcome to the Reuters Institute for study of journalism and the global journalism Seminar Series. Today's seminar feels something like a homecoming Kumbhalgarh. Curtis was a fellow at the Reuters Institute in 2017. At the time he was writing for create one of Turkey's most influential and independent newspapers. His work for us at the Reuters Institute dealt with how to write about journalists, and how journalists could write about human rights in an environment where their own rights are being eroded fast. Turkey was one of once the world's worst country for debt, jailing journalists. Countries like China, Saudi Arabia have now caught up and is now ranked sixth. But it's not still a difficult polarized environment in which to do journalism. And yet Kemal has always found a way to keep reporting. In 2019, he found the podcast and online news platform Kisa Dalga, or shortwave, and he presents TV programs on RT TV. Kemal, thank you so much for joining us today. And welcome back.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Let me hand over to your presentation and then we'll come back for questions as well.

Okay, okay. And the Urmila do Caitlin. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here at Reuters Institute. As you said it is like my second time. My experience at the institute fellowship program was excellent and I must say that thanks to its contribution to my journalistic knowledge, and I could establish saga, which has been one of the leading podcast news and investigative journalism platform in Turkey. So, as you said the journalism has been under heavy pressure for nearly a decade in Turkey. I will try to explain this pressure and the political ground on which it is based, but I will also talk about the struggle for a free press in Turkey and its results. Looking at some recent events would help us understand what is going on in Turkey and what the trouble is in the country. So let's have a look at three pictures. Let me show you them. Yes, these are three famous beautiful women of my country and left to right. The first one is says an auction. And the second one says an actually is a very famous pop singer in Turkey. The second one is Sedef kovash. She is a prominent news Anchorman and the very famous journalists in Turkey. And the third one is a very well known pop singer guzhen So I will tell you about the stories recently the experienced says they're not show me the song and turn first Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan supporters, then Turkey's state and religious party, later Afghans coalition partner foreign rights nations, partly the MHB nations movement party's leader, David Patchett. And finally the Aragon himself targeted popsters is an outfit for society degrees in a song released five years ago, Oxford was accused of insulting to the religious values, as well as Adam and Eve by citing say hello to ignorant Eve and Adam in the song procurement trolls launched an online submitting campaign an add on supporters fight a criminal complaint about the singer arguing that it is an unacceptable insult to Adam. Why? She said ignorant to Adam. After the Friday pray. Erdogan himself said no one could say such things to Prophet Adam. When necessary. It's our duty to cut off two tanks saying such things. His remarks sparked a wave of anger among many people, including women's rights activists, artists, actors and other prominent figures. In this poster everyone says they're not penned a poem on January 21 of this year. She says you cannot operate my tongue you cannot kill me. It was translated into dozens of foreign languages and shaped by millions the anger towards add on grieve like a snowball and then on song of Xanax was listened by millions, as one after one week of silence claimed that he was not referring to Xanax or personally when he threatened to cut the tongues of those who slandered Adam and Eve.

And second, journalist Sedef publish Calabash was taken into custody from her home during a midnight rate at 12pm. On January 22, she was arrested on the same day, insulting the president for using a very well known proverb in Turkey. Apple does not become King just by entering the palace. But the palace becomes a bomb. Her fortune was not different from seasonax. She immediately became the target of government and AKP, the ruling party officials, including President Erdogan and the Justice Minister, the same week, Popstar Bill shines out thought v1 Yu Shan stage costume was an issue for the program circus, almost every magazine column social media accounts, but public private news artists also discussed the level of transparency of her outfit, while being resistant to criticism. She gave an impressive response to her openness by see more than a being a father slaughters a man's wife, a child's mother and I am a person with a mind ability to teach and freewill I am not a slave to any objective. I don't belong to anyone. I am myself. I belong to myself. She wrote this on her Instagram account, and the post became a hit on social media and shared by millions. And the question what was the ruling blocks because there is a ruling bloc in Turkey Islamist and far right nation is blocked we can say what was the ruling blocked purpose of targeting the two women among others. Many observers including the main opposition parties, social democrats, CHP believe that the ruling alliances does not want Turkish people to talk about the worsening of the economic crisis, increasing corruption or any other subjects that characterize the government is weak to ensure that they want to use the most potent weapon of diversion. It is our belief and religion and drag the opposition into this discussion, and this populists remarks and threads are considered as superficial agenda to stop the debates about deeply rooted issues, such as the economy growing poverty, inequality, unemployment, increasing authoritarianism, and declining support for the government. Almost all polls conducted by both independent and pro government research companies suggested AKP and it's far right nations as

MHB are likely to lose an election. The most crucial, both of the this partnership is of course to win the election, general and presidential election, which will be set in 2023. Next year in June, Avatar is essential for the AKP because it will be the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the Turkish Republic. So the AKP is electoral success will also mean that Islam is will take revenge on the Republic, which abolish the monarchy, and the caliphate. And meanwhile, are gone and his ruling partner have been following a strategy to transform Turkish state and social structures. So we can say they have two goals, one, winning the election and 10 Transforming Turkey to a more Islamic Republic. So since its founding in 2002, the AKP Justice and Development Party has won all general and presidential elections. Afghan has set tactical tools to succeed even in challenging times. The most important of these is establishing partnerships. Aragon has also consolidated his waters by polarizing and dividing Turkish society. Let me explain you in more detail. When Afghan first came to power in 2002, he said he gave up his Islamist waves to escape the pressure of military to touch and describe his party as a conservative Democratic Party. Under his leadership, Turkey underwent significant constitutional and legislative change that matrix A candidate of European Union membership in 2005. This strategy had a KP receive substantial support from liberals in Turkey, even some leftists and the European Union and the Western countries while doing this his most crucial partner was a federal law couldn't anti support was a religious sect, which was strong within the bureaucracy, police and judiciary. Glenys played an essential role in a KPS power. while increasing its impact in global platforms. And thanks to this partnership advances power in the judiciary and to police and there were a lot of fights against this group. They were accused of being attempting to overthrow the government and being a member of a terrorist organization etc. And he naturalized the traditional military and civilian bureaucracy, which we call Kemalists bureaucracy. Mustafa Kamal Lata Turkey's the founder of Turkish Republic, and they support his ideas. And I'm not going to explain the power struggle between the AKP and togetherness in detail and nor the role of Grannis in the 2016 Faith quietens. I'm sure you have heard and read a lot of about them, but I want to focus on what has happened after the quiet time. After the quiet time, the AKP government declared a state of emergency. This was a golden opportunity for everyone to purge the supporters of Glenn within the state institutions with criminalizing opposition groups, such as Kurdish or navies leftist, and liberal opposition. Turkey experienced political turmoil and rapid trans transformation. The attempt to pave a way for establishing new partners for everyone.

He ended the ceasefire within the armed Kurdish PKK Kurdish Kurdistan Workers Party a year before the quota, his pro nations policies led him to become closer to one of his fiercest opponents, the far right MHP nations movement party after the quiet time the MHP NT traditional military and civilian bureaucracy, which I mentioned. Commodus bureaucracy, took a site to ally themselves with Aragon, the support of the military and civilian bureaucracy also meant supporting the deep state elements and the mafia groups in cooperation with them. And what were the common features of these three groups, these three parties in this coalition we can say that they were all against a western style democracy and defending an authoritarian system and advocating closer relations with Russia and China in domestic affairs was the another common feature and rejecting getting a peaceful solution to the Kurdish problem we can add them supporting military integrations in Turkish foreign policy, such as Iraq, Syria, Libya, and cassava and they all have a common ideology. In the end, we can say the AKP is Islamist and MHP is nationalist and other deep state groups Our nation is too but they all unite in an ideology in Turkey, we call it Turkish Islamic synthesis, which has roots for the century maybe. Thanks to these new partners add on switch from a parliamentary system to an authoritarian, Turkish type presidency system after the referendum in 2017. This a lot to constitutional system has no resemblance to presidential systems in the West. He eroded the strict separation of powers, the main principles of presidential system and concentrated all power under his predecessor presidency, and parliament power was significantly reduced and it had virtually no influence over the administration. The judiciary, which everyone had already, a firm grip has completely lost its independence. The country is governed by only presidential decrees, we can see the second primary strategy of the AKP which enabled it to maintain its power for such a long time has been polarization. According to this strategy, external forces are shown as the source of the company's economic political and social issues. It is still unclear what air Dewan and his supporters mean by these outside powers. However, these foreign powers have local collaborators. Glenn is NC PKK may consider terrorist organizations have been labeled collaborators, collaborators by government circles, but it doesn't end there. Anyone against Erdogan including all opposition parties is denounced for being against Turkey or supported by foreign powers and terrorist organizations. And this was add on strategy to win elections until the 2019. local municipal elections in the 2019 election air dance pronation is competition competed against the opposition aliens, including the center left CHP and the secular nationalist party. A party means good party and they keep it last election in beach metropoles especially in Ankara, the capital city and the biggest city stumble and is

the left range and pro Kurdish party HTP People's Democratic Party played a significant role in defeating take up HTP supporters use their preference for supporting to opposition partnership because after the end of Kurdish peace process, which was between 2013 and 15 negotiations between the government and the Kurdish movement ended in 2015. The HDP was subjected to tremendous pressure, many MPs and 1000s of party members including co chairs, former co chair Salatin demitasse which was a charismatic leader and figure new Seta were arrested and they are still behind bars. HTTP members were banned from appearing on television in the mainstream media. The HTTP was only able to find coverage in the mainstream media when they were accused of being terrorists support party and losing the election with the support of HTTP was a significant trauma for AKP. And its partner MHB especially the defeat of Istanbul was substantial, because as a well known face in Turkish politics argues whoever loses Istanbul loses turkey. So social media and online news sites and alternative media outlets played a vital role in the government partnership losing the municipal elections. And although the government captured 90% of the mainstream media, it could not be the agenda setting effect of the opposition and independent media. I will give more details about this issue. After this electoral defeat, Aragorn and his partners began to use all the energies to ensure that this defeat would not be repeated in the parliamentary and presidential elections. And it's almost impossible to answer HTTP support for the opposition. However, the profound media out there as well contradictions between the HTTP and opposition below every pressure on the HTTP meant a nice test for the opposition. Therefore, the pressures on HTTP was increased. The Supreme Court prosecutor's office filed and indictment to close the HDP and demanded that nearly 500 HTTP members in including a co chairs be banned from politics in June, it is very likely the party will be closed because Afghan has control over the Constitutional Court and a female employee in the HDP. Izmir office was assassinated on June 17 2021 last year, and the mass murder did not occur by chance at the last moment. One of the main challenges to the ruling bloc came with a worsening of the Turkish economy and allegations of corruption set up to pay cash and I have to show you a video of say that pay cash can you see?

No we can see the file but not the actual video. Sorry. Okay, we can hear it but we can't see it. Okay, let's try it again. Share Screen now. We can only hear it tomorrow. We can't. file but it's not opening

again, stop shares. shares. I'm sharing Okay, anyway. Let me go on telling you about him. Yeah, say that PKF is a prominent mafia leader has been acting with the deep state since the 1990s and has committed many crimes fled abroad and began to criticize the government early last year. Take care became a ATP supporter after the ATP and the deep state started to work together in 2016. Before filling abroad, take your support to the ATP VT rallies he organized and threatened to open its private the signatures of the peace petition of academics. They were declared that they will not support a war in Kurdish area of Turkey and setup a cat said we are going to shed blood in streams and take a bath in your blood to these academics. And but after his fallout with everyone, he made serious allegations against ministers, deputies, senior party officials and senior brokers. He brought up many criminal allegations such as drug trafficking money laundering, bribery and speeding. taken me these statements first on his YouTube channel, which I couldn't show you and then on Twitter. His videos have been waived nearly 150 million times and his YouTube channel reached 1,002,000 subscribers and his Twitter account reached 2 million followers. And mainstream media of course did not call any of these allegations. However, opposition and independent journalists investigated the claims and found that almost all virtue, such significant corruption allegations would overthrow a government in a normal country but however the station in Turkey has been different, similar corruption allegations came to for about AKP during its 20 rule, but none of them diminished the power of the government. The difference in Turkey we say they still but they also expressed the attitude of Turkish people towards corruption. Therefore, it should not surprise anyone that Peck has irrigations did not affect the government. However, then the economy crisis combined with the corruption

the AKP and MHP what began to melt and Turkish people started to think they are stealing and working only for themselves. And in the post COVID period, there were economic problems in Turkey and the rest of the world however, then these problems were combined with bad financial management. Under Aragon leadership, the impact of the crisis became more substantial to people in Turkey. As one who likes to brag by saying I am an economist, was doing the opposite of what economics said. Are the one who often repeated the phrase interest is the cause inflation is the result completely remote the autonomy of central bank to lower the interest rates as a result is this an orthodox economic policy is that inflation to jump to 20 year high of 36% and seriously eroding earnings especially of working and lower middle class. And these are the main support to off to a keeping and the government has introduced fiscal measures to ease currency body volatility. However, the lira is Turkish Lira is still 46%. We could then go and add one who wants to boost exports and credit has refused to change course despite growing public discontent. And according to a public pool in December Afghans approval rate is its lowest since 2015 at 38%, and his popularity is behind the three potential presidential rivals. And these economic and political conditions show that the AKP and image people has no choice but to suppress the opposition to win the election and establish the system they want. This indicates that the pressure on media and opposition is likely to increase and diversify. And let me express the station with Turkey saying what they have done so far is the guarantee of what they will do. From now on. And let's see what they have done so far. And Turkey ranks 150 church in the 180 country, the verge, Press Freedom Index of Reporters Without Borders, and the criminal offence, insulting the president of the republic. Remember Sedef coverage has been actively used against those who criticize Aragon, both social media users and journalists and politicians etc. The total number of investigations opened this offense in the previous of five presidents were 180,000 but during add ons presidency, a Aragon elected as a president in 2014, the number exceeded 68,000 68,000 cases and during Aragon's presidency 70 journalists were sentenced to prison or given a different business centers are fined for insulting the president. And in only in 2021, nearly 1000 news stories online news stories were blocked by authorities and according to a recent report in 2021. Again 35 journalists were sent to prison and they were accused of insulting the president membership of a terrorist organization. Remember polarizing the society and aiding to terrorist organization and even espionage. And 64 journalists were acquitted in the trials where they were facing charges. And plus you at this 41 journalists were taken into custody. 75 journalists were attacked and battered and the radio and television supreme consumer

imposed fines on media outlets, Stasi 71 penalties and fined 21 million Turkish Lira in total unemployment is a problem still in Turkey. In last five years, nearly 1000 journalists lost their jobs. And despite the heavy pressure exerted by the government or the media, opposition and independent journalism has become a vital force in Turkey. The increasing influence of digital media and opposition television channels push the government to develop new means of repression and muster today, the latest example of near restraint tools came with the presidential decree. He ordered steps to take against media, like TV programs themed contrary to Turkey's fundamental values. Amazon stated that all precautions will be taken against productions that negatively affect the family children and yod and those groups will be protected from message conveyed through certain symbols. The decree followed the lunch of Fox TV's church adaptation of the international show, the masked singer in the show of celebrities perform costumes to hide their identities. And Prague our outlets accused the show of sipping Satanic and pagan content. In fact, as dawn had ordered a wide ranging attack on the media using a television show as an excuse. And there are some rumors that Fox TV will remove this show soon. And the decrease was not only perceived as a near miss or pressure on the media. Many commentators are good that by core values held one man's religious values and the decree violates the Turkish constitution. And one writer wrote about this deeply. This is a de facto Sharia decree. And another codec wrote, This decree is sufficient proof of the AKP government decided to breach the arm and Vink of the independent media before the election. So the main reason that push the government to develop new repression policies in the growing strength of independent and opposition media and let's talk about the new mainstream media someone calls new media in Turkey need mainstream media. So according to Reuters is just the latest digital report online including social media has become the Prime Minister's of news in Turkey with 81% and social media has a shade of 61%. And TV is a new source for 60 60% and participants. Said print is a new source for them for only 30% and a comprehensive report International Press Institute report. Titled Turkey digital media report the NIV mainstream is rising and it seeks support demonstrates distribution of digital media in Turkey. So I want to tell about the main findings about this report. First independent media's digital reach 33 million users and is catching up with the pro government media's program media has 48 million users. This is a huge development for Neve digital media. And independent artists present a more fragmented media landscape. But programming media is highly centralized right and concentrated and that is a disadvantage for digital neither an alternative or near mainstream media. You can say independent media. They also they still like behind the program with media, in specific demographics, including women and to me the most important thing is independent media outlets receive 60 16% more interactions on social media and are closer to breaking through the echo chamber. And, but there are some disadvantages these are mainly caused by big companies giant tech companies, for instance, Google provides turkeys independent media outlets with significantly lower visibility 90% of Google's top story slots were given by search engines algorithm to three pro government media outlets. And Google search results amplify pro government outlets hits hate speech, and disinformation targeting democratic civil society. And YouTube's recommendation algorithm mostly keeps the viewers of Turkeys pro government media outlets in an echo chamber. And independent media executives report that most visitors come from social platforms and search engines and only half of independent media outlets expected a net profit in 2020 85 of the staff are in editorial teams, and they like human resources especially in tech related departments and reporters. Although 60% of nation artists incomes are solely based on advertising, some are on the way to diversifying their revenue sources with digital subscribers as they keep experimenting with new media formats. And in that we can say that yes, there is still hot conditions in Touch Media. We face a lot of difficulties we feel the pressure and many of our friends are facing. They feel the fear of being pre jailed or losing their job. But still, there is no resistance and independent media in Turkey is growing. As I mentioned, the research about the new means media. We have a lot of advantages and most important, most importantly, people in Turkey trust the new media, not the outpatient programs media. And that's all thank you for listening to me and maybe the can go on with questions.

Thank you so much Kemal can magisterial overview and there are some things that really jumped out which is Turkey, like so many countries has a cohort of journalists who suddenly are having to work having to go from a pluralistic, relatively democratic, open way of working to suddenly being an incredibly polarized censorious environment, facing legal threats from oil and financial threats from all directions and it's a situation that many people know too well. And it's also very striking when you talked about the idea of Turkish values and slightly comical that it's coalesced around the Masked Singer program. But again, we've had fellows from Russia talking, looking at how Russian values have kind of affected how Russia is allowed to portray certain issues as well. So thank you very much for your topic and for your work as well. And I want to ask you more about your podcast, but first I'm going to go to the room into the journalist fellows because as I said, we've got lots of people operating in very difficult countries, Malaysia. Hi, you had a question about, you know, basically what can journalists do about gathering information in this environment?

Hi, nice. To meet you. I knew itself from Serbia. I have a question for you. Can you obtain any data from public institution? Or do you have open databases from Turkey that you can use for your work as a journalist

so yeah. If I understood, you're asking about new scattering.

What access do you have to kind of data sources and because in several countries that gov

Yeah. I can say that we have been working for mainstream media for a long time. For instance, I have been working for 20 years and many of my colleagues have been working for printed newspapers or TV channels. For a long term. And these is a way to continue our ties with our sources. But we have many difficulties, as you said, Because bureaucracy is very close. I mean, they don't want to give any information to you because you are working in an independent outlet and if and bureaucracy has changed, they are almost all of them are supposed to have running a blog. But in the end, we are doing our journalism, so we still have some sources in the bureaucracy and mainly in judiciary, because Turkey is a big country. You know, we have a population of 83 million, so they cannot control everything. That's why they couldn't control everything in Turkey, although they want to establish an authoritarian system still. We can say Turkey is a authoritarian country, but still this is resistance because there are a lot of groups so these groups in bureaucracy and for instance in judiciary still can give information to independent media. And last week, the opposition parties neither came up to the Start although stated claim because Erdogan of being in a corruption and he said this document came from brokers. So still, this is a resistance in the bureaucracy and they are sending some documents to both opposition parties and independent outlets, but it is not like the past so a lot of teams change that. We have difficulties as you can guess, but and we are finding some other ways of reporting. So sometimes we cannot reach our sources and we cannot reach the information and but investigative journalism help us in Kisa Dalga In our purchase platform. We focused on investigative journalism, so it is difficult than before. But still, if you follow journalism rules which you know well, you can do a lot of things you can investigate corruption for instance setup pickaxe crimes, the mafia did I mentioned setup because allegations and they help us and he showed us direction. So we went on the direction and we found a lot of things about those issues.

Thanks very much Kemal. I'm not going to go to Emily who's in the seminar room from Hong Kong and again, fully empathizes with this idea of trying to do journalism in a kind of catastrophic environment. Emily, the question Nice to meet you. Thank you.

I wonder that because I know that the Turkish government imposed a new law last years to get the new power to your presidents and your government to control the NGO because NGO and then journalists are all together, work together and then society and then in Hong Kong, after the government, if the pressures to the NGO, just so many NGOs were forced to disband and then this is so affected to our January's work, and then I want to know that is it any new defect inference for your work in Turkey after the government imposed a noodle?

Yeah, this was very important. The financial problems before VV have financial problems that is is our main one of our main problems, because there is an AdBlock to independent media companies and companies do not want to give an advertisement to independent media and VA we are trying to solve these financial problems with some grants with some funds from Europe. Mainly for instance, our third Agha can do our problems with contribution of European Endowment for Democracy, which was established in Brussels and its members, our European Union companies. So, but we don't have any affiliation with an NGO but many major companies in Turkey have an affiliation with NGOs because they need financial support and the finance support comes from European Union projects mean the government decided to act this and that's why the new low push NGOs and there are some difficulties now then because police control them and their documents are always being controlled. And if 101 if a member of these NGOs is accused of being a member of terrorist organization or aiding a terrorist organization, this NGO will be closed. This means police can accuse of these members being or aiding a terrorist organization and then they can shut down your NGO. Yeah, it was it's very difficult still. But there are some nice solutions. Media companies doing some day try to find some support from NGOs affiliated with European Union. But yeah, they this is a new problem for many major companies.

Thanks. Thanks for the question, Emily and for highlighting that it's an important issue. And I'm good to go to Morton from Vermont. Hi. Fred from Copenhagen, Denmark.

I have to say the pressure media is likely to expand. That sounds very worrying to me. So my question is, how can Chinese media respond to this challenge in the most effective way?

So what we have to do is to continue our jobs so to the our jobs. We don't have a an other tools. But this is very effective. doing journalism is very effective, and insisting on investigative journalism and finding new ways of journalism for instance, podcasts or YouTube channels. There are many, many ways of journalism in Turkey, and I think it will be a problem if AKP loses the elections, because there will be maybe a couse in media there are a lot of media companies and also patient procurement media. The will be faced some maybe probation by new government, but answering your question via heavy AR doing our job and we are the TVs of journalism and we have to be more strong. That's why we are looking for new financial sources for instance, digital advertisement or subscription etc. But the main problem is our companies are all small companies. This is a big problem. There there are some leading independent media outlets. For instance, if we can say do our D can these are all websites, made Jasco piano maybe some of the US some of them, but mainly there are a lot of small media companies doing independent journalism. Maybe we can unite and we can establish bigger companies to struggle. But you know, if they decide to jail you you don't have anything to be you we are very, we are very careful. And we for instance, we have a lawyer working with us. He reads all our reports and distance all our podcasts before publishing or broadcasting. This is not a self censorship, but this is a way of being not change it not five Yeah, but the main thing is doing journalism is gone journalism. And we are sure that this term will end soon.

I ask a caveat to that before I go to Mirage, which is question from Paddy. In the audience Patty called you know, which is what what can the international community do to help here? You told what the Turkish community can do, Turkish journalist can do what can the international community

human living in the UK

UK or abroad? Yeah. Yeah.

So

many people living abroad, Turkish people, unfortunately support that. So it's maybe 60 or 70% of them vote for Amazon and MHP foglights, partner of faerber. But we tried to do something with them. We, to be honest, we wanted this solidarity and we should do something together. But we maybe it's our fault. It's our mistake, but we couldn't find a way because they all have some ties with Turkey. They go for a holiday or they have some assets in Turkey. And they are afraid of these because many Turkish Kurdish people were jailed because of the social media posts. When they bought Turkey and there is a pressure on them to but this does not mean we are doing nothing with them. They have some radios and TV channels. And I worked for one of them for a little time, but they don't have enough finance to help us. So that's why and they don't have expert journalists. They are all amateurish companies

Okay, thank you. I'm good to go back into the room now to mera choose again with us from Kashmir. Talking about

if I heard correctly, I said in the introduction, you brought us some stuff on RT as well Russian

television all right. Sure. I'm not because I couldn't hear you.

I think I think Mirage is asking

if we mentioned art art, a RT RT television and

yeah, I'm working for you. And is that the same as Russia today? RT No, no, no.

Very different. It's based in German and Germany and it says, television, which are established by the Turkish and Kurdish journalist, which had to go to Turkey after choir attempt, but they are not good dentists. They are more leftists and liberals. So no, it's different from the Russian TV.

Is that the question you wanted? Neeraj? Was there something else? Oh, okay. Sorry, Miss here. Thank you. And I have a question from Hannah who shouldn't be in the room but is isolating, which is that the dismantling you described sounds so similar to development in the media in Hungary, Russia, Poland, and to what extent do you think there is a space and opportunity or indeed need for cross border cooperation with journalists and other countries experiencing the same deterioration?

Yeah, it's very essential. I think. We need more solidarity and we know each other very well than others. So but I haven't heard any project or program that unites this country's journalists. And the main thing we need is solidarity. I mean, it's not only finance it's not only about money, sharing experience, sharing contents, doing common writing common reports or investigative journalism. We can do together. We need this. But maybe today, do we maybe we don't have enough time because we all are so busy in Turkey and I am sure that the other side in Russia in Hungary and in other countries are busy too, but we have to find a solution because we need ties not only with these countries with European or British journalists, the but there is a problem and then we want to talk with the British, European Germany's they start to think that this conversation will end about money. This is not the issue. Yes, we have many difficulties. We need projects. But we need solidarity at the same time. But this solidarity will come from doing common things. I mean, working together, and that's why sometimes the other country's journalists don't show enough attention to our job.

Thank you to come on. I'm going to end we've got a few minutes left. I just want to end with asking you about your podcast, because we mentioned this at the beginning. And the paper you wrote for us, which is very good paper really highlighted how hard it is for journalists in Turkey to remain independent in this polarized environment. Because once you work for the independent side, so to speak, the kind of the anti, you know, the critical government paper that criticize the government, it's very hard to kind of switch sides. So the idea of either having a professional journalist you can write for a variety of outlets with different political views has gone and also crucially, a space to have an even political debate that is not one sided, and you created this space with your podcast and it was a new space that didn't really exist in Turkey before. So could you talk us a little bit about your thinking on in creating that

resonating for me and thank you, for you personally NTUC too, because I have a hard podcast in Turkey. Podcast is a nice, medium. So there were some but not about journalism, not about nice. They've only about some chats discuss or something here like that. But after that, after those seminars in the institute, I decided to do podcasts, personally, but then I started to look for financial support. He asked me if I could do it with a team so I sat down I established Kisa Dalga For this reason, and it the the I happily I can say that we have a good range of audience and our podcasts are being listened 1000s of times and we are leading the podcasts sector, because there are some companies trying to do nice podcasts but our podcasts are better than them and the VR, sometimes first sometimes second podcast among Daily News and we are always in the first 10 podcasts when it comes to nice purchase, and we are our rivals on BBC and New York Times in Turkey because as I said there isn't many companies doing podcast but after we started the podcast, big companies tried to do this and they establish their podcasts, bureaus purchase offices, but still, we are ahead of them. And last year, we started to website online journalism to because the we are we have good stories while we are preparing podcasts, and we decided to write them too. So we there are many reports coming from this podcast and our website is growing and likely will have more support these years from Ed and VLB not only a podcast platform, but at the same time and investigative journalism platform will do both written audio and maybe in the future. Videos. Of nice face.

Thank you come out. That's great. Really, really good to hear. And I'm what I'm going to do is connect you with back the committee chair offline because we did run out of time now from Serbia who run runs an investigative journalism network there as well. I think she's got lots of questions and I think it'll be really useful for you to talk but in the meantime, it's so good to see you again. Thank you for joining us. All the very best of luck with everything and we will keep we'll keep in touch. And thank you all for your questions.