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The Death of Journalism in Turkey

Cengiz Candar writes that when veteran Turkish journalist Hasan Cemal resigned on March 18 from his 15-year stint with daily Milliyet after it refused to print his latest article, it was the death of decent journalism in Turkey.
Turkish columnist Hasan Cemal (R), one of five journalists who are on trial for insulting the country's courts, leaves the court house following their trial in Istanbul, February 7, 2006. A Turkish court on Tuesday began hearing the case of five prominent journalists who face possible jail sentences in a trial which is seen as a fresh test of curbs on freedom of expression in the European Union candidate nation. REUTERS/Stringer - RTR1A80J

In Turkey, Jan. 17, 2013, will be remembered as “The Death of the Journalist.” Nobody will ask which journalist because the name that most deserved the label, ‘’The Journalist,” was without doubt Mehmet Ali Birand. On that day he died. It was a sudden death.

He was a journalist with international stature who had signed his name to so many successes in journalism and, more importantly, he was the pioneer and unrivaled master of television journalism. In recent years, he had added to his long list of qualifications being the anchorman of an important TV channel. Although he had been afflicted with pancreatic cancer two years ago, he never abandoned the TV screen apart from his days of surgery and annual leave. Even in the evenings of his chemotherapy sessions he appeared in front of his millions of viewers. His death did not come as the inevitable end of his cancer. One night he said to his viewers that “We will meet tomorrow night" and went to the hospital for a simple surgery. His heart just stopped totally unexpectedly after a successful surgery. Probably his heart had mutinied against sustaining the formidable energy that had kept him going for over 50 years.

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