Journalists should have insistently asked “Why is the number of missing children no longer disclosed” to show that the Narin Güran incident was not an independent police matter and was a societal problem

SUNCEM KOÇER*

The way the news media conveys an incident is as important as the event itself, especially in times of societal crisis. Where the camera is positioned, who the microphones are turned to determine the perspective from which the public gets to see what happened. The formulation of the language used to transpose the multi-dimensional and complicated socio-political life to headlines in two dimensions could become the main element that constructs reality.

According to such an approach, which sees the media not as a mirror but as an active agent in the construction of sociality and the truth, journalists have a heavy burden to bear. Considering some fundamental principles which have been much focused on and debated throughout the history of the press, such as objectivity and accountability, this heavy burden is nothing other than ethics-based journalism.

Seeing Tavşantepe in headlines; seeing Turkey in Tavşantepe

To give a recent but grim example, we can take up the role of the media in publicizing the murder of eight-year-old Narin Günay, whose body was found on day 19 of her disappearance in Tavşantepe, Diyarbakır. From the moment we learned that Narin Güran was missing, it was crucial for journalists to keep bringing up the issue and stubbornly following the investigation. While occasional violations of the secrecy of an investigation by journalists is something that should be criticized in terms of ethical standards under normal circumstances, declining trust in institutions requires us to postpone this criticism. Furthermore, journalists who take risks to carry out reporting can often become a lifeline for citizens amidst the uncertainty of a crisis. There have been many incidents in recent years, (e.g. the death of Rabia Naz Vatan) which were only investigated thanks to the determination of journalists, or investigations already underway changed course because of journalistic determination. The media’s role in the case of Narin Güran was not limited to establishing meaning in representational space. The media played a role influencing the course of the investigation, and perhaps not as much as necessary at that.

A look at the headlines concerning the murder of Narin Güran in the mainstream media offers little other than examples of “yellow journalism,” as though a time capsule to the very beginning of press history. Headlines using phrases such as “heartrending details,” “confessed forbidden affairs” and “shocking statements” sensationalized the reporting of the murder of an eight-year-old, which took place behind the closed doors of the family institution. This style may keep the public interest alive. However, framing the news as stories has a significant impact on the public perception and the ethical field. The selection of content and titles on subjects such as murders, violence and extremism in the media, the representation of the victims and the parties once more underlines the dilemma journalists face in balancing between keeping the public interest alive and reporting ethically (Abubakar, 2019). This dilemma is unique neither to the present time nor to Turkey. This approach is an iteration of the language used for sensationalist journalism, which appeared with the penny press in the early 20th century. In fact, it is difficult to find some form of past ideal journalism which later became degenerate. Ethics-based journalism is a field of practice which has needed to be constructed through struggle since its emergence. We need to keep this historical continuity in mind in trying to understand the aspects of the reporting on the Narin Güran murder that are unique to Turkey in 2024 and the function the media serves in constructing the truth.

It would have been easy to miss the fact that the real questions were not being asked as the emotionally charged expressions used in the media representation of the murder of Narin Güran turned the murder into a spectacle. The issue of missing children is an important one in Turkey. As official figures have not been disclosed since 2016, we do not know the number of missing children. To say this crucial point was hardly brought up in the reporting on the Narin Güran murder is not being unfair. As academic Yasemin İnceoğlu has underlined, the media should have paid attention to how many children had gone missing and how many of them had been found in recent years in Turkey while taking up the murder of Narin Güran. Journalist Kemal Göktaş has said, “Tavşantepe has become Turkey’s mirror, Turkey is Tavşantepe” with similar emphasis. The insignificance of the life of a child (of Narin or another) the silence of an entire community (in Tavşantepe or some other place in Turkey) in the face of crimes committed against children and the irregularities in the investigation may have characterized this case, but they were not unique. Journalists should have insistently asked “Why is the number of missing children no longer disclosed” to show that the Narin Güran incident was not an independent police matter and was a societal problem. While it questioned the reasons for the conflicting accounts produced by the villagers of Tavşantepe, an MP’s statements protecting the family under investigation and the investigation being run half-heartedly, the media should have presented the murder not as a spectacle to be consumed but as a critical moment in a societal pattern. What we got to see instead, in keeping with the conventions of the post-truth age, were reporters crying on air, a murdered child caricaturized as an angel and the accounts of extramarital sexual intercourse befitting a murder mystery. Furthermore, the media’s approach was not unique to this case. In many events, in which various centers of power and power relationships need to be followed up critically, the press behaves in similar fashion. What was the role of the media, for example, in depicting the earthquakes of 6 February 2023 as the “disaster of the century” and normalizing deaths and losses as the result of an inevitable disaster? How frequently did the media convey the information that dozens of women are killed by family members every year, while newspaper pages featured the murders of individual women? Why has the number of missing children not been disclosed for the last eight years? One can think of many more questions to ask.

Until “ethical journalism” becomes journalism itself

Aidan White, director of the Ethical Journalism Network, lists the five core principles of ethical journalism as accuracy, independence, impartiality (or better put, awareness of different sides), humanity and accountability. When we take a step back to look at these values together, what we see is journalism itself. It is journalists who will ensure that these values are realized online and offline. Here, it may be productive to consider the concept of “self-regulation” which attaches importance to the professional determination of journalists. This concept does not provide a solution single-handedly, but rather a field rife for development. This is because as practicing agents, the possibility of self-regulation, which means journalists getting to practice ethical principles, is limited by state mechanisms and market conditions.

Some years ago, I interviewed Tayfun Ertan, founding editor-in-chief of Turkey’s first news TV network NTV, for a study on regulation and self-regulation in television. Ertan put it succinctly: “What we call self-regulation is good journalism itself as practiced in a democratic journalism environment.” Ertan, who has held positions in many international and national organizations, including the BBC and CNN Türk throughout his career backed his assortment with experience. To quote from the study in question (Koçer, 2018: 172):

According to Ertan, publication and broadcasting principles in the media in Turkey could be divided into two categories. The first category consists of the written principles of publishing prepared by the Press Council, the Journalists’ Association and publishers such as the Doğan Media Group, which were printed in booklets, or, for example, put up on the walls on the Hürriyet newspaper’s premises. Although these differ on some points, they broadly include the basic principles concerning the nature of journalism. Ertan describes the second category as the real principles. These background principles have extremely little to do with journalism. These are the principles which identify the matters that are sensitive for, e.g. the Doğan Media Group’s interests, which determine the issues to be reported on and the boundaries of reporting. Employees implement these principles in a chain that runs from upper management downwards. The media owner places people who think like him/her, who share the same concerns and who will act accordingly in critical positions. These people then set up their own teams. Although there may be some who act in line with the principles of journalism, they eventually internalize these background principles and stop asking the important questions of journalism.

It is at this point that we find the beginnings of a practice of journalism which is far removed from grappling with the truth behind facts and events, which is empty inside and which Ertan describes as “tell-us-how-you are-feeling journalism.” Ethical journalism, which is journalism itself, is limited by the professional determination and self-regulation of practitioners working in non-democratic environments. Although Ertan has pointed out the narrowness of this space, self-regulation is perhaps the most viable field of development for ethical journalism that we have.

In Turkey, where the most ordinary public events, such as elections and protests are experienced as though they were crises, we do not lack for examples to drive us to debate ethics in journalism. Crises are those moments when we citizens experience the negative impacts of information irregularity the most. A lot has been said in the literature about how the ethical degradation in journalism has gathered momentum with the digital space devouring reporting (e.g. Hamada 2018). However, it is not enough to simply note the culture of speed of the internet, the click-based income model of platforms and their attention-grabbing architecture. With its historical background and current situation, the news media sits at the center of the position we find ourselves in, both as a subject and an object. While the internet and social media may have exacerbated the afflictions in the world and in Turkey which reached new heights with the neo-liberal transformation of the press and made them what they currently are, the digital space is not alone responsible for the erosion of the ethical foundations of journalism. In analyzing the situation of the news media, the historical approach allows us to more easily establish correct causal relations. Establishing correct causal relations is the key to resilience in the face of the deadlock of distrust in the news and the deafening roar of social media.

References

Abubakar, A. (2019). News values and the ethical dilemmas of covering violent extremism. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 97(1), 278-298. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699019847258

Hamada, B. (2018). Social media: a turning point into global journalism identity and ethics. https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.80255

Koçer, S. (2018) “Televizyonda Denetim ve Özdenetim” Medyada Özdenetim: Zorluklar, İmkanlar, Öneriler. ed. Doğan Akın. P24 Kitaplığı: İstanbul

İnceoğlu, Y. (2024, 17 October) Medyanın Suç Haberciliği: Narin Cinayeti Örneği. NewsLabTürkiye. https://www.newslabturkey.org/2024/10/17/medyanin-suc-haberciligi-narin-cinayeti-ornegi/

*Academic