About Us

The IPS Communication Foundation was established in 1993 with the aim of “implementing and supporting projects in the fields of communication and development.” The Foundation carries out its activities through projects funded by grants and donations from domestic and international sources.

The Foundation’s revenue-generating activities are conducted through the IPS Communication Foundation Economic Enterprise.

Our Editorial Principles

• We define our journalism as rights-based peace journalism.
• Accuracy and commitment to factual reality are indispensable to our reporting.
• We openly correct our mistakes.
• We are not neutral; however, we take sides not with individuals or institutions, but with principles, rights, and peace.
• Whenever there is a potential conflict of interest related to our reporting, we always inform the editorial management.
• We respect information shared with us on a privileged basis.
• We protect our news sources from authorities.
• We refrain from reflecting personal opinions in our reporting.
• We never fabricate news, falsify content, or engage in plagiarism.
• We never alter still or moving images beyond necessary visual adjustments and requirements related to privacy.
• We never pay, give gifts, or make commitments and promises to sources for information. We never accept bribes.
• We do not use reports from other sources if they can be prepared by our newsroom.
• The safety of our journalists is our primary priority.

Who’s who at the IPS Communication Foundation?
 Board of Directors

• Nadire Mater (Chair)
  
  
• Ertuğrul Kürkçü (Secretary General)
  
  
• Seyfi Öngider
  
  
• Tuğrul Eryılmaz
  
  
• Ümre Deniz Tuna
  

Founders

• Füsun Özbilgen
  
  
• Şahika Yüksel
  
  
• Tuğrul Eryılmaz

ONGOING PROJECTS

Independent Media Project (Independent Media)

Within the Independent Media project supported by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), the IPS Communication Foundation aims to strengthen the institutional sustainability of independent media; support actors practicing rights-based journalism; and promote reporting grounded in freedom of expression, media pluralism, and gender equality.

Project Duration
1 April 2024 – 31 December 2027
Project Budget
26,000,000 Swedish krona
Supporting Organization(s)
Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida)
Environmental Investigative Journalism Program

The project titled Environmental Investigative Journalism Program aims to strengthen the capacity of freelance and unemployed journalists in Turkey to report on local environmental issues using rights-based and data-driven approaches. It also seeks to highlight the intersections between ecological destruction and social struggles. The program’s second component covers the development and upkeep (in Turkish and English) of a media monitoring database that documents legal and administrative violations against journalists in Turkey.

Project Duration
May 2025 – December 2025
Project Budget
17,000 euro
Supporting Organization(s)
Oslo Metropolitan University, Journalism & Media International Center (JMIC)

Our Media: Civil Society Movement for the Multiplication of Media Literacy and Activism, Prevention of Polarization, and Promotion of Dialogue)
 The project “Our Media: Civil Society Movement for the Multiplication of Media Literacy and Activism, Prevention of Polarization, and Promotion of Dialogue” aims to support media freedom and media literacy; and to carry out advocacy and capacity-building activities by civil society organizations in the areas of media activism, gender equality, and freedom of expression.

Project Duration
1 February 2023 – January 2026 (36 months)
Project Budget
120,913.47 euro
Supporting Organization(s)
European Union

Open Database on Male Violence
 The Open Database on Male Violence project aims to transform bianet’s “Male Violence Tally,” compiled since 2008, into a digital, open-access database. This tally, which records cases of violence by men against women, LGBTI+ people, and children in Turkey, will become a filterable and visualizable resource. Thus, rights organizations, journalists, and researchers will be able to analyze the scale of violence by province, relationship type, form of violence, and other criteria. The project seeks to produce concrete, evidence-based advocacy and awareness-raising tools for the struggle for gender equality.

Project Duration
14 October 2024 – 14 January 2026 (15 months)
Project Budget
1,010,310 TL
Supporting Organization(s)
Association for Monitoring Gender Equality (within the scope of the project “ Enhancement of Participatory Democracy in Turkey: Monitoring Gender Equality Project Phase III”)

COMPLETED PROJECTS

“Core Support for IPS Communication Foundation”

Project Objective:
 To contribute to the promotion of rights-based journalism by encouraging reporting grounded in freedom of expression, media pluralism, and gender equality.

Activities within the Project:

• Bianet news website
  
  
• Media Monitoring Reports
  
  
• BIA Workshops
  
  
• BIA Books
  

Project Duration: 2019 – 2024

Project Budget: 28,620,000 SEK

Environmental Journalism Training and Reporting Program
 The project titled Environmental Journalism Training and Reporting Program aimed to increase the capacity of journalists working in environmental reporting in Turkey and to boost the visibility of news about the climate crisis. Within the project—designed to foreground lesser-known environmental struggles, support investigative journalism, and document the experiences of journalists under pressure—produced articles were published in the special dossier “Eko Alarm.”

Project Duration
25 September 2024 – 15 January 2025
Project Budget
15,480 euro
Supporting Organization(s)
 Oslo Metropolitan University – Journalism & Media International Center (JMIC)

Free Press for Free Turkey
The project Free Press for Free Turkey aimed to support press freedom in Turkey, strengthen independent journalism, and support civil society initiatives working on freedom of expression. The project carried out knowledge production for journalists, advocacy, public information through publications, and visibility activities.

Project Duration
1 May – 31 December 2024
Project Budget
53,628 euro
Supporting Organization(s)
German Federal Foreign Office

Regional Online Media Regulation Study
This project aimed to analyze existing regulations on social media platforms and online media in the Western Balkans and Turkey, presenting a comparative picture of practices related to freedom of expression, digital rights, and content moderation. IPS conducted a two-phase national study addressing the situation in Turkey and reported the findings.

Project Duration
 1 December 2024 – 30 June 2025
 Project Budget
 6,750 US dollars
 Supporting Organization(s)
 UNESCO

Challenging Sexist and Discriminatory News Language: New Possibilities in Good Journalism
Emerging from the Early Warning System Program for Combating Fake News and Hate Speech, this project aimed to identify hate speech and discriminatory news language targeting women, LGBTI+ people, refugees, and migrants in the media in Turkey, and to show how it can be transformed through human-rights-based and good journalism practices.
Within the project, hate-speech monitoring was conducted in the print press; racist, sexist, and exclusionary discourses appearing in newspapers were identified. These discourses were reported by experts and rewritten from a rights-based journalism perspective. In the second phase, these rewritten examples were visualized as guidelines, disseminated, and shared with media outlets and rights organizations.
Through social media campaigns and mailing activities, the reports and guides reached national and international media workers, human rights defenders, and academics. Throughout the project, the goals were to increase media literacy, strengthen public awareness against discrimination, and spread examples of good journalism.

Project Duration: 15 November 2023 – 31 July 2024
Project Budget: 5,000 euro
Supporting Organization(s): European Union
Core Support for IPS Communication Foundation

Project Objective:
To contribute to the dissemination of rights-based journalism by promoting reporting grounded in freedom of expression, media pluralism, and gender equality.

Activities within the Project:

• Bianet news website
• Media Monitoring Reports
• From School to Newsroom Program / BIA Workshops
• BIA Books

Project Duration: 2015 – 2019
Project Budget: 24,764,412 SEK

SIDA projects aim to support actors engaged in rights-based journalism and to strengthen the dissemination of this approach by encouraging reporting based on freedom of expression, media pluralism, and gender equality.

BIA5 – “Journalism for Rights, Freedom for Journalists”

• Objective: To contribute to the dissemination of rights-based journalism.
• Activities: Bianet news website, Media Monitoring Reports, From School to Newsroom Program, BIA Books
• Duration: 2013 – 2015
• Budget: 7,390,000 SEK

BIA4 – “Journalism for Rights, Freedom for Journalists”

• Objective: To contribute to the dissemination of rights-based journalism.
• Activities: Bianet news website, Media Monitoring Reports, From School to Newsroom Program, BIA Books
• Duration: 2011 – 2013
• Budget: 6,200,000 SEK

BIA3 – “Journalism for Rights, Freedom for Journalists”

• Objective: To contribute to the dissemination of rights-based journalism.
• Activities: Bianet news website, Media Monitoring Reports, From School to Newsroom Program, BIA Books
• Duration: 2007 – 2010
• Budget: €747,887
• Supporting Organizations: European Union – European Commission Delegation to Turkey, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA)

Strengthening Bianet

Activities: Strengthening Bianet as a news website both editorially and financially; training 120 local journalists across seven regions of Turkey (2007–2009) in journalism ethics, news writing, and photojournalism.

• Duration: 2007 – 2009
• Budget: €141,200
• Supporting Organization: Press Now

BIA2 – “Media Freedom, Independent Journalism, Monitoring and News Network”

• Objective: To support local media; monitor violations of freedom of expression; encourage stronger and more frequent coverage of human, women’s, and children’s rights in the media; and promote professional journalistic standards and ethics.
• Activities: Bianet news website, Media Monitoring Reports, training for local media and rights organizations, legal assistance for local media, radio programs for local media use, International Independent Media Forum.
• Duration: 2003 – 2006
• Budget: €1,072,200
• Supporting Organizations: EU Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights, Chrest Foundation, Friedrich Ebert Foundation (Germany–Istanbul), Consulate General of Sweden in Istanbul, Embassy of Denmark in Ankara, KAGIDER (Women Entrepreneurs Association of Turkey), UNFPA Turkey

BIA – Independent Communication Network

• Objective: To establish a nationwide network to monitor and protect press freedom and independent journalism.
• Activities: Bianet news website, training for local media, legal assistance, radio programs for local media.
• Duration: 2001 – 2003
• Budget: €564,364.79
• Supporting Organizations: EU MEDA Programme, Heinrich Böll Foundation, Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB), Turkish Medical Association (TTB)

Being a Woman in Your Twenties in the Mediterranean

Women journalists from Turkey, Algeria, Italy, Lebanon, Spain, Egypt, France, Morocco, and Palestine came together to depict the life of “Mediterranean women in their twenties” through news and stories.

In cooperation with Bianet, Rome-based babelmed.net, Barcelona’s monthly Akfar/Ideas, and Beirut’s L’Orient Le Jour, the project was supported by the Anna Lindh Foundation, IEMed (European Institute of the Mediterranean), and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. A meeting was held in Barcelona on 5–6 February 2007, including a public session on “Visibility/Invisibility and Representation of Women in the Media.” Outputs were published on Bianet, babelmed, Akfar/Ideas, and L’Orient Le Jour.

Supporting Organizations: Anna Lindh Foundation, European Union Delegation to Turkey, EU Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR), EU MEDA Programme, EuropeAid, UNICEF Turkey, UNFPA Turkey, Chrest Foundation, Embassy of Denmark in Ankara, Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Global Dialogue, Heinrich Böll Foundation, IFEX, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), Consulate General of Sweden in Istanbul, Küçük Eller Children’s Home, McCormick Foundation, Metis Publishing

👉 You can access all the activities we carry out within the scope of our projects here: https://bianet.org/projeler