Erdoğan - TÜSİAD Debate and Media

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In his article entitled "How has the debate between the President and TÜSİAD been faded out?" published on his personal website, media ombudsperson Faruk Bildirici has evaluated how the media considers the statements of High Advisory Board Chair of the Turkish Business and Industry Association (TÜSİAD) Tuncay Özilhan and President and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Bildirici has stated that the pro-government media did not give place to Özilhan's speech at all but conveyed only President Erdoğan's words, and he has criticized that the statistics that were shared by Özilhan described as "trick of statistics" by Erdoğan was not mentioned.

News websites

In sum, Bildirici, who indicated that the websites did not give place to Özilhan's speech either, has mentioned following statements in his writing:

"Criticisms of Özilhan were published on the websites of Sözcü, Evrensel, BirGün and websites such as Habertürk, İnternet Haber and Diken, but I could not see the sentences that annoyed Erdoğan on these websites, either.

"I could find the statistics [which Özilhan shared] on the websites of Cumhuriyet, T24, Odatv and bianet. T24 was the only one that gave the widest space to Özilhan's criticisms and statistics. bianet has also put this part forward in its news. Odatv, on the other hand, has summarized Özilhan's words in the news about the President Erdoğan's reaction."

Newspapers

Bildirici, who stated that most of the pro-government newspapers were published with the same titles and did not give place to Özilhan's words, has drawn attention to that only Yeni Şafak used the title "TÜSİAD's agenda is the politics" and Akşam reversed the criticism by moving the words of TÜSİAD chair Simone Kaslowski saying 'We support the actions to be taken'.

Bildirici also conveyed that Hürriyet, Milliyet and Posta newspapers, which were sold to Demirören Group by Doğan Group, gave space to Erdoğan's reaction on the inside pages as differently than other pro-government newspapers and these three newspapers have their titles in common.

Bildirici has also reminded how these newspapers were making the news about TÜSİAD's statements during the period of Doğan Group.

bianet criticized as well

Faruk Bildirici, while stating that the pro-government newspapers hid information from the audience by publishing merely Erdoğan's reaction, darkened the one side of the reality, set an example of distorted news-making, also criticized some media organizations including bianet as follows:

"The news of some media organizations that ignored the statistical data which annoyed Erdoğan are also missing and mistaken despite the fact that they gave place to Özilhan's speech.

"For, these news do not answer the question of 'What did Özilhan say and do as 'trick of statistics?' In this sense, these do not provide something so that the audience could understand the debate wholly..." (EKN/TY/SD)