If US President Barack Obama brings up the controversial issue of freedom of speech tomorrow [May 16], at his meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the White House, it would be the most surprising news of all. Not only is the US administration facing its own flap over the seizure by the Justice Department last year of phone records at The Associated Press, the world's most widely disseminated news service, Turkey has long been mired in issues of press freedom even as it espouses such values.

Wiretapping of media personalities and acquiring access to the privileged information of journalists is commonplace in Turkey. While no government is perfect in holding up the highest standards of press freedom, there are still major differences between civil rights and their implementation in Turkey and the United States. Even as the imperfections in the United States make the rest of the world question the sincerity of its democratic principles, Max Hoffman and Michael Werz of the Center for American Progress, question Turkey's role as a "model" for the rest of the Muslim Arab world in transition to democracy in their new study, “Freedom of the Press and Expression in Turkey,” released on May 14. 

"The sidelining of press freedom, minority rights and judicial reform now threatens to impact the joint strategic project being advanced by the United States and Turkey to establish secure and democratic governance in the region and foster economic growth," they write. "The fact that Turkey has regressed on issues of press freedom and stalled on judicial reforms undermines the persuasive power of the Turkish democratic model in the wider region." They also admit that Washington almost never makes this issue a priority in bilateral talks. "As such, US officials and policy analysts focused on defining a cooperative regional agenda. Questions surrounding Turkey’s ongoing democratization, including issues of press freedom and freedom of expression, were therefore often sidelined.”

This, however, has always been the case — meaning freedom of the media has never been a priority when state interests are involved. It was not really a major issue in the 1990s, when the military imposed strict media controls covering the fight against Kurdish terrorism. In fact, Erdogan often refers to this kind of military rule and the fight against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) as the two main obstacles to Turkey’s democratization and the freedom of the media. “The 2014 presidential elections may also reveal the extent to which the current controversies are the product of specific leadership personalities or a case of the familiar tools of power wielded by new hands,” Hoffman and Werz write.