Shooting the Arbiter in Turkey: How Sabah Fired Its Ombudsman
The former ombudsman of Sabah tells his story of the firing that has shaken Turkish journalism and generated international criticism of Turkey’s approach to the media.
It was early May. I published an important correction in my ombudsman’s column, I guess it was on the first Monday of the month (I could not check the precise date, because the newspaper deleted the ombudsman’s digital archive the day [July 24] after it fired me).
The story in question was a front-page report about a Justice and Development Party (AKP) meeting and contained also the results of a public-opinion poll, which was said to have been commissioned by the AKP and presented to the prime minister. The figures were irrelevant for the ombudsman. What mattered was the objection of the polling company, KONDA, which confirmed conducting the survey but said it was not commissioned by the AKP. It was a simple correction, but still it had to be put on record so as to not mislead the reader.
After the article was sent to the editors in the late-edition hours on Sunday, the ombudsman had to handle busy telephone traffic. The writer of the story — the correspondent who covers the AKP — had already seen the early edition and “alerted” his superiors. The ombudsman came under meaningless pressure to modify the content of his piece in those late hours of the evening, but, as always, no external intervention was allowed to creep into the article.
The next day, a senior editor relayed a message from Sabah’s top management to the ombudsman: “Ombudsman Baydar should better stop slamming this newspaper. Either he gives up those constant attacks or he goes elsewhere to write.”
