Surge In Turkcell's Yeni Akit Ads Sign Of New Turkey's Changing Dynamics

Turkey's leading mobile phone operator Turkcell's change in its advertising strategy in favor of the pro-government media, particularly radical Islamist daily Yeni Akit, which is known for its polarizing language against minorities and non-Muslim communities, is in essence an indicator of a new system in which dissenting voices are punished while government supporters are backed financially, political analysts have said.

Professor Mehmet Altan, an economist, journalist and author, said the real issue that needs to be considered is the emergence of an environment where big companies have started supporting “backward structures” such as Yeni Akit. Speaking with Today's Zaman in a phone interview, Altan said “the new ideology in Turkey honors Yeni Akit by supporting it with advertisements, and this is contradictory to the ideology of a democratic country.” Altan also argued that a political structure that compels companies to financially sponsor these government-affiliated media outlets through its state powers is not in compliance with democratic standards.

According to the most up-to-date advertisement expenditure (AdEx) data provided daily by Nielsen, a leading global information and measurement company, Turkcell, which is the only Turkish company listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), has almost doubled the amount of advertisements it has placed with Yeni Akit in nine months from Jan. 1 to Sept. 28, 2014 over the same period a year ago.

Yeni Akit frequently runs highly opinionated stories that pick on ethnic and religious minorities, non-Muslim communities, liberals and non-conservative political groups as targets. The daily's editor in chief, Hasan Karakaya, who is among the few journalists in the inner circle of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, wrote in one of his columns in June that the decapitations by some members of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) -- avoiding using the label “terrorists” -- were only individual incidents and must not be attributed to ISIL.

The paper published in a July edition a crossword puzzle featuring German dictator Adolf Hitler in military uniform in a huge central photo, with the solution to the crossword spelling out the phrase “we look for you,” referring to Hitler. This caused a massive reaction. The most recent example that exemplifies the paper's publication policy was in its Monday edition, where Karakaya lashed out at Zaman journalist Adem Yavuz Arslan, who was physically assaulted and was kicked out of a hotel in New York by the aides and guards of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Arslan was covering a meeting between Erdoğan and the US Vice President Joe Biden. Karakaya wrote “Are you a man to be protected, Arslan? If you ask me, you are not even a man! You are a loser that acts like a hitman with the lies you hear from your brothers, runs after provocation and writes articles that constantly make people targets.”

Milliyet daily's columnist Aslı Aydıntaşbaş argued that as a nation, Turkey has suffered a lot from the discourse of hatred and neither language nor a newspaper that exploits it has any place in the modern world. Speaking to Today's Zaman, she said no one, including even pro-government circles and the so-called liberals, has any right to say about Yeni Akit “it's not worth being taken seriously.” “This rhetoric of hate caused the murder of Hrant Dink and [yet] this newspaper always finds a place for itself on the President's plane,” said Aydıntaşbaş.

Minorities, the Hizmet movement, Gezi protestors, members of other faiths and races -- everyone but the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) -- have got their share of the hate speech of this newspaper, said the journalist, calling on both liberals and democrats to take a clear stance against it.

Turkcell's advertisements in Yeni Akit, which has a daily circulation of over 50,000 copies, rose (in advertising measurements) from 2,884.5 columns centimeters to 9,176 in the aforementioned period, marking an increase of 218.1 percent. In the meantime, Turkcell's ads in Turkey's largest daily Zaman, which enjoyed almost 1 million copies in circulation during most of this time, fell 78.2 percent from 26,637 columns centimeters in the first nine months of 2013 to 5,807.5 in 2014.

Nielsen's data suggests a shift in Turkcell's publicity policy as the company's promotional ads in print media seem to have sustained a decrease of slightly over 33 percent when compared the first nine months of 2013 and this year. In response to Today's Zaman's calls for an answer about its changing publicity strategy in favor of some of the pro-government media and in particular Yeni Akit, Turkcell said it “prefers to keep silent.”

The rhetoric of a publication such as Yeni Akit always gets a reaction and such radical bodies are isolated in democratic countries in the world, but it is honored in Turkey, said author and journalist Hayko Bağdat, who is an Turkish citizen of Armenian origin.

“Currently, state institutions are being used like a gun. Almost all institutions and companies are being tamed by the state. Any company that refuses to obey the government is either pushed into trouble or an attempt is made to sink them,” said Bağdat.

İbrahim Türkmen/Osman Ünalan (Cihan/Today's Zaman)