On April 29th, 2020, Columbia Global Centers | Istanbul hosted Murat Yetkin, journalist and editor of the Yetkin Report, for a live webinar on “Journalism in the Time of COVID-19” in conversation with İpek Cem Taha, Director of Columbia Global Centers | Istanbul.
Murat Yetkin talked about a wide range of topics including the freedom of speech, the current landscape of journalism, international politics, and many others.
Murat Yetkin said that COVID-19 has not had much of an impact on the current state of journalism in Turkey since the situation was already substandard. Long before the pandemic outbreak, many journalists, writers and media executives were imprisoned, forced to resign, or fired from their jobs. Nowadays, almost 75% of media ownership, according to recent research, is concentrated in the hands of a few private media groups, which have close relations with the current government of Turkey. Monopolized mainstream media and TV and radio channels do not allow journalists to truly report on the news and serve citizens factual and well-sourced information. This, according to him, is especially vital during crises like COVID-19.
Yetkin also talked about issues that have been swept under the carpet like Syrian refugees, Idlib, and the S-400 issue in Turkey. He said that “the COVID-19 outbreak seems to have drawn a thick cover over all the problems in the world, except for the collapse of economies. Once that veil gets lifted, we will see that everything continues from where it left off but with a much heavier load.”
