More than a year ago, when Fatih Altayli was the editor in chief of Sabah we have sparked a debate called "yes sir" journalism. At the time Sabah editorial had preference to report in accordance with the perspective of some military generals in Ankara.
To bring this angle of Sabah's reporting at the time we claimed, "Sabah is one of Turkey's leading newspapers. We can say that it is a reliable source to follow. However, in recent months a numbers of its reports turned out incorrect. Many of these reports were either officially denied, or are falsified by the subsequent developments. One common characteristic of these reports is that they are mainly related to military-police relations. In many of these reports, the sources are defined as an unidentified military figure and they usually imply that the police are the wrongdoers."
At the time, we specifically mentioned Metehan Demir one of the top reporters of Sabah in Ankara who rather than reporting objectively preferred to report the military angel of the issues. Despite some obvious mistakes in his reporting, he misled the public in these issues. At the end, many of his reports on military police subjects were denied.
At the time, we claimed that this kind of reporting is meant to serve certain goals of some generals in the military. We criticized such journalism and claimed, in "yes sir" journalism, the readers do not know the relationship between the source of information and the journalist who transmits the information to his readers. In this type of journalism, if it is called journalism at all, the journalist is in a passive position in that his job is all about transmitting the information given to him. Most of the time, s/he has no right to question the authenticity of the information."
In response to our analysis, Sabah's editors claimed that their sources were the highest rank military/police officers. The Editor's claims can be summarized as follows: "we received this information from highest rank officers; therefore we used these sources as the source of our reports. Since these officers are the highest position of their rank, what can we do other than publishing what they say? They are reliable source for us."
Get in touch with the high rank officials in security institutions is of course an acceptable way. However, journalist should not treat a high rank official as the only source of information. Because, in critical times, even highest rank officials can mislead journalists to the benefit of himself of his institution. If a journalist wants to use the information, which is coming from only a high rank official, given that the information may have some misleading points and cannot be checked by other sources, he/she should refer it to his source's name. Otherwise, "an unnamed police/military sources told us" type of reporting may mislead readers.
The reason why I remind these arguments a year later is that one of the "yes sir" journalists, Metehan Demir, was hammered by the Turkish military in last week. The daily Radikal published an interview Monday August 20, with Metehan Demir, argued that a meeting between Gul and top commanders might have taken place to agree on a secret deal on Gul's presidential bid. Demir, who is considered to have close ties with military circles, also claimed that he was informed in advance of the military's warning to the government on April 27.
The statement stated that such reports were incorrect and aim to use the Turkish military as a tool for their internal political goals. …In this regard, such reports are not wrong, they are lies. The ones who make incorrect stories are misleading the public opinion and serve certain goals by damaging the Turkish Armed Forces, added the military.
Does this mean that the "yes sir" journalism is ended? A plain answer for this question is NO. Rather than the "yes sir" journalism itself, this statement directly targeted Mr. Demir because he appears to be in a good relationship with Mr. Abdullah Gul's office in last five to six months. Therefore, the statements highlights a point to say: the report were incorrect and aim to use the Turkish military as a tool for their internal political goals. …In this regard, such reports are not wrong; they are lies . The ones who make incorrect stories are misleading the public opinion and serve certain goals by damaging the Turkish Armed Forces.
Despite a very good editorial management of Ergun Babahan, the new editor in chief of Sabah, such mistakes are still made. The primary reason is not the personal one but the structure of "yes sir" journalism in Turkey misleads reporters and readers alike.
