Doğan Media Group Chair Yalçındağ Resigns After RedHack’s Leak

Click to read the aritlcle in Turkish

Doğan Media Group Chair Mehmet Ali Yalçındağ has resigned. Following the resignation, Doğan Media Group Honorary President Aydın Doğan made a statement and regarded the e-mail correspondence between Yalçındağ and the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Berat Albayrak as “a serious attempt to discredit”.

Yalçındağ has announced his resignation as “In order to prevent any harm to Doğan [Media] Group, I have decided to resign as of today [September 30].   

Process Leading to Resignation

On September 23, 2016, hacktivist group RedHack had announced that they would make e-mails of Minister Albayrak public in case the detained critics/opponents including Alp Altınörs and Aslı Erdoğan were not released until September 27.

Also e-mails exchanged between Doğan Media Group Chair Mehmet Ali Yalçındağ and Minister Albayrak were among other mails of the Minister shared on RedHack’s Twitter account as screenshots.

In the e-mails on the screenshots, Yalçındağ shares information about senior meetings of Doğan Media Group with Minister Albayrak. He in addition, makes a recommendation that Hürriyet daily’s Editor-in-Chief Sedat Ergin should be replaced with journalist Ahmet Hakan, a columnist with Hürriyet daily.

 The mails which also reveal relations of Yalçındağ’s with the chief of Hürriyet daily’s Executive Board Vuslat Erdoğan has caused doubts regarding the independence of  the daily. (HK/DG)