If you are a journalist based in Türkiye, it is almost impossible not to have mixed feelings about Reuters, especially these days. You must have seen the job listing on LinkedIn in which the British news agency advertises for a “deputy bureau chief” who is conditioned to defend Türkiye’s “modern secular traditions” that have "shifted" during President Recep Tayyip “Erdoğan’s rule.” That means if you are of the opinion that the modern secular dynamics in the country have not seen a radical change throughout the last 20 years, you cannot apply for the position regardless of your journalistic background, field experience or writing skills. What a prerequisite!
The ad further requests that journalists should also be able to “deliver deep-dive enterprise stories at the same time as supporting” their “high-performing team covering a critical juncture in Erdogan's rule – with runaway inflation and a battered lira combining to threaten his bid for re-election in the months ahead.”
Yes, it's true, the ad belongs to Reuters. R.E.U.T.E.R.S. The British news agency. The norm setter in international journalism.
Last week, a violent clash erupted in central Paris, where the ravaged supporters of the PKK terrorist group turned the French streets into a battlefield after a suspected racist attack targeted a cultural center in the city, killing three people. Some protesters set fire to vehicles, overturned cars and damaged public property. French security officers were caught off guard as the PKK sympathizers, most of whom are generally trained for guerilla tactics, were not like the common protesters the French police are familiar with. Footage showed that some officers were actually frightened, hiding behind buildings during the skirmishes.
Reuters, however, ignored the PKK footprint in its Paris unrest coverage, as they (again!) preferred to use “Kurdish” or “Kurds” instead of "PKK supporters" in their reporting on the Place de la Republique clashes. “Kurdish protest over Paris shooting turns violent” or “Kurds in Paris march for shooting victims” are just two titles Reuters used for the coverage.
The main photo we used for Daily Sabah’s Dec. 26 edition belongs to Reuters; however, we had to change the original caption after it triggered our fact-checking mechanisms in our newsroom. The original caption said: “Gendarmerie members stand guard, as members of the Kurdish community attend a demonstration, following a shooting, in Paris, France,” describing the PKK supporters as “members of the Kurdish community.”
A quick Google search provides a relevant parallel to the AI robot Reuters must use for its disinformation and misinformation in this specific case. I believe even if a newbie at the Reuters newsroom happens to use “PKK” in a related piece, the filters automatically change it to “Kurdish.” Their conscience is apparently clear. Let me end Reuters’ PKK policy here as this piece highlights a different angle.
I will not lie to you, Reuters has scared me a bit. I worry that if Reuters is at this level now, I cannot imagine what awaits in the future. What's next? A news agency that seeks to hire a “journalist” who “should participate in a political campaign to overthrow a bla bla leader in a bla bla country"? Or a media company that will actively participate in a PKK campaign?
Worldwide the British news agency is imitated a lot. It runs a huge network of journalists including Pulitzer winners and provides a major news source to global media groups. Every credible media company is and should be a Reuters subscriber. This is why I and others like me have mixed feelings about the British giant. How can such a “reliable” news source become so “unreliable"?
Let’s give the devil his due. For years, anti-Erdoğanism or sympathy for the PKK is a common thing in the international mainstream media. In other words, selling the products such as the said job ad or the Kurdish description to the world is not something easy to do. Everyone has an agenda for it. By hook or by crook, Reuters, however, has managed to add spice to the existing manipulative machine in a corrupted news environment. As the famous marketing analogy says, Reuters has managed to sell ice to Eskimos. Congrats!
