CNN Turk — a franchise of CNN, the US broadcasting giant owned by Warner Media — has been plunged into the spotlight in the media freedom controversy in Turkey as the main opposition decided to boycott the channel over its support of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government.
In a Feb. 6 presser to announce the boycott, Tuncay Ozkan, deputy chairman in charge of media relations at the Republican People’s Party (CHP), likened the station to an "advertising agency" that promotes the narratives of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), while “covering up the realities.” The channel’s biased coverage, he stressed, has reached an “intolerable level” since the local elections last spring that saw the CHP defeat the AKP in major urban centers. In the parliamentary elections in 2018, the CHP had mustered 22.6% of the vote, winning 146 seats in the 600-member parliament.
