After Reuters posted a job advert targeting Türkiye and its president, the country's communications director said on Saturday that the Britain-based news agency has appeared to "shift away from the facts."
"Reuters seems to shift away from the facts and instead employ a biased perspective about what has happened to 'modern secular traditions' in Türkiye during President (Recep Tayyip) Erdoğan's rule. These statements would only make sense on a propaganda leaflet," Presidential Communications Director Fahrettin Altun said on Twitter.
Emphasizing that such behavior was "not journalism," Altun said that a media outlet "should ask their journalists on the ground about the facts before deciding what has happened and using it as a guideline for news."
He suggested Reuters "juxtapose these sentences with their commitment to principles of journalism: 'Founded in 1851, it is committed to the Trust Principles of independence, integrity and freedom from bias.'"
Also responding to the Reuters advert for a deputy bureau chief in Istanbul, Turkish English-language broadcaster TRT World published a listing of its own to employ a London-based correspondent, drawing attention to the political instability and economic problems in the United Kingdom, and the fact that the country is still ruled by a monarch in the 21st century.
TRT World used similar – yet more temperate – wording in the advert, refraining from targeting a specific political leader.
