Democracy in Crisis: Corruption, Media, and Power in Turkey

In November 2013, a Freedom House delegation traveled to Turkey to meet with journalists, NGOs, business leaders, and senior government officials about the deteriorating state of media freedom in the country. The delegation's objective, and the plan for this report, was to investigate reports of government efforts to pressure and intimidate journalists and of overly close relationships between media owners and government, which, along with bad laws and overly aggressive prosecutors, have muzzled objective reporting in Turkey.Since November, events in Turkey have taken a severe turn for the worse. The police raids that revealed a corruption scandal on December 17, and the allegations of massive bidrigging and money laundering by people at the highest levels of the government, have sparked a frantic crackdown by the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party. More journalists have been fired for speaking out. Hundreds of police officers and prosecutors have been fired or relocated across the country. Amendments to the new Internet regulation law proposed by the government would make it possible for officials to block websites without court orders. The government is also threatening the separation of powers by putting the judiciary, including criminal investigations, under direct control of the Ministry of Justice. The crisis of democracy in Turkey is not a future problem -- it is right here, right now.This report on the media recognizes that what is happening in Turkey is bigger than one institution and part of a long history that continues to shape current events. The media in Turkey have always been close to the state; as recently as 1997, large media organizations were co-opted by the military to subvert a democratically elected government. The AK Party was formed in the wake of those events. But even as it has tamed the military, the AKP has been unable to resist the temptations of authoritarianism embedded in the state the military helped create. Over the past seven years, the government has increasingly employed a variety of strong-arm tactics to suppress the media's proper role as a check on power. Some of the most disturbing efforts include the following:Intimidation: Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an frequently attacks journalists by name after they write critical commentary. In several well-known cases, like those of Hasan Cemal and Nuray Mert, journalists have lost their jobs after these public attacks. Sympathetic courts hand out convictions in defamation cases for criticism.Mass firings: At least 59 journalists were fired or forced out in retaliation for their coverage of last summer's Gezi Park protests. The December corruption scandal has produced another string of firings of prominent columnists.Buying off or forcing out media moguls: Holding companies sympathetic to the government receive billions of dollars in government contracts, often through government bodies housed in the prime minister's office. Companies with media outlets critical of the government have been targets of tax investigations, forced to pay large fines, and likely disadvantaged in public tenders.Wiretapping: The National Security Organization has wiretapped journalists covering national security stories, using false names on the warrants in order to avoid judicial scrutiny.Imprisonment: Dozens of journalists remain imprisoned under broadly defined antiterrorism laws. A majority of those in prison are Kurds, and some analysts believe the government is using them as bargaining chips in negotiations with the Kurdish PKKThese tactics are unacceptable in a democracy. They deny Turkish citizens full access to information and constrain a healthy political debate. Journalists and government officials alike acknowledge that reporters and news organizations have practiced self-censorship to avoid angering the government, and especially Prime Minister Erdogan.The intentional weakening of Turkey's democratic institutions, including attempts to bully and censor Turkey's media, should and must be a matter of deep concern for the United States and the European Union. As the AKParty's internal coalition has grown more fragile, Erdogan has used his leverage over the media to push issues of public morality and religion and to squelch public debate of the accountability of his government. The result is an increasingly polarized political arena and society.Freedom House calls on the government of Turkey to recognize that in a democracy, a free press and other independent institutions play a very important role. There are clear and concrete steps the Turkish government must take to end the intimidation and corruption of Turkey's media. Chief among these are the following:Cease threats against journalists.Repeal the criminal defamation law and overly broad antiterrorism and "criminal organization" laws that have been used to jail dozens of journalists.Comply with European and international standards in procurement practices in order to reduce the incentive for media owners to curry favor by distorting the news. Turkish media owners themselves must make a commitment to support changes in procurement practices if they are to win back the trust of Turkey's citizens.Although building a resilient democracy is fundamentally up to Turkish citizens, the international community cannot afford to be bystanders. The European Union and the OSCE have raised strong concerns about government pressure on Turkey's media, and the EU's warnings against governmental overreach have been pointed. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the United States. The Obama administration has been far too slow to realize the seriousness of the threat to Turkey's democracy. U.S. criticism of the Turkish government's recent actions has come from the State Department spokesperson and White House press secretary, not from the high-ranking officials who need to be engaged in responding to a crisis of this scale. Where European governments and institutions have been specifically and publicly engaged with the government over the crisis, the Obama administration has avoided the difficult issues. It is time to speak frankly and with seriousness about the growing threat to democracy in Turkey, and to place freedom of expression and democracy at the center of the policy relationship

The First Amendment and the Free Press: A Comment on Some New Trends and Some Old Theories

Responding to the trend of media rights being subjugated through the legal process, this article examines Justice Stewart\u27s suggestion that the media should be treated with extra deference in First Amendment cases. This examination looks at the sufficiency of the press\u27s claim of judicial harshness, whether the press should be treated differently than other speakers, and also compares press freedom in foreign nations

The Law and the Press

This chapter offers a broad survey of the relationships between the law and the press (primarily the newspaper press) during the nineteenth century. It traces the transition from early decades of vigorous state hostility of the first third of the century, through the gradual relaxation of fiscal and regulatory controls from the 1830s to the 1860s, to the brief period of completely unregulated press production in the 1870s. It examines the main legal engagements of the press in this period: the various forms of libel, political (seditious, blasphemous and obscene), civil and criminal, as well as copyright and contempt of court. In doing so it explores the limits of the ‘free press’ of British constitutional myth, and the complex and mutually constitutive relationship between the press and the law as interests

Protecting the Watchdog: Using the Freedom of Information Act to Preference the Press

The fourth estate is undergoing dramatic changes. Many newspaper reporters, already surrounded by a growing number of empty desks, are shifting their focus away from costly investigative reporting and towards amassing Twitter followers and writing the perfect “share line.” Newspapers’ budgets can no longer robustly support accountability journalism and pitching fights against the government. And so, while this busier and noisier media environment may have a desirable democratizing effect—more of us are able to participate in analyzing, debating, and perhaps even making the news—it has not succeeded in filling a role that print journalists have traditionally played well—keeping watch on the government. In order to perpetuate its historical role as watchdog, the fourth estate needs fortification. This fortification should come in the form of legal preferences for the press. Providing such preferences is not new, but it arguably has not been done in a significant way since postal subsidies were granted to newspapers in the colonial era. Today, with few exceptions, the law generally treats journalists just like any other citizens and news organizations like any other business. This article proposes a new way to preference the press—one that would not involve direct subsidies or discriminating between old media and new. Instead, it would give journalists a commodity that is fundamental to their work: information. To preference the press, this article looks to the Freedom of Information Act, the law governing when and how the executive branch discloses information to the public. While in theory the law facilitates the press’s access to vast amounts of information in the hands of the executive branch, implementation of FOIA has, since it was passed in 1966, been fraught with problems. Agencies routinely take months and even years to respond to journalists’ requests, making the process incompatible with a news cycle that is spinning ever faster. This article proposes focusing on FOIA’s expedited processing provisions to prioritize journalists’ requests over those of other requesters, expedite agency fulfillment of them, and ease the press’s ability to challenge late, incomplete, or otherwise unsatisfactory disclosures. It argues that any journalist filing a FOIA request seeking expedited processing should presumptively go to the front of the queue. At that point, there would be firm deadlines (where none exist now) for providing the journalist with the information requested. These small but significant changes to an already established provision of FOIA could help the media better serve as a watchdog at a time when that role needs protecting

Making News: Balancing Newsworthiness and Privacy in the Age of Algorithms

In deciding privacy lawsuits against media defendants, courts have for decades deferred to the media. They have given it wide berth to determine what is newsworthy and so, what is protected under the First Amendment. And in doing so, they have often spoken reverently of the editorial process and journalistic decision-making. Yet, in just the last several years, news production and consumption has changed dramatically. As we get more of our news from digital and social media sites, the role of information gatekeeper is shifting from journalists to computer engineers, programmers, and app designers. The algorithms that the latter write and that underlie Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other platforms are not only influencing what we read but are prompting journalists to approach their craft differently. While the Restatement (Second) of Torts says that a glance at any morning newspaper can confirm what qualifies as newsworthy, this article argues that the modern-day corollary (which might involve a glance at a Facebook News Feed) is not true. If we want to meaningfully balance privacy and First Amendment rights, then courts should not be so quick to defer to the press in privacy tort cases, especially given that courts’ assumptions about how the press makes newsworthiness decisions may no longer be accurate. This article offers several suggestions for making better-reasoned decisions in privacy cases against the press

Silence or Death in Mexico's Press: Crime, Violence, and Corruption Are Destroying the Country's Journalism

Examines the culture of bribery, extortion, and police complicity; murders and kidnappings of journalists; and the resulting self-censorship. Includes case studies, lists of the dead and missing, and recommendations for governments and journalists

Giving Oral Expression Free Rein : Implications for Diversity of University Hate Speech Code

This paper uses history, law, and First Amendment theory to examine the concepts of political correctness, free speech, and hate speech in a search for a solution of how best to deal with hate speech incidents that occur in the university campus community. The paper notes the American tendency toward tyranny of the majority as noted by Alexis de Tocqueville in the 1830s and then proceeds to examine the double-edged sword of free speech. By guaranteeing freedom of speech we promote the right to shout down ethnic and other minority groups; by providing penalties against those who use it to shout others down we make society less free. This paper suggests a different answer: promote more speech expressed in community meetings conducted in an atmosphere that is safe and encouraging for all to express their views