The heat of the desert sun woke me up early in the morning even though it was the middle of winter. Instead of stealing an extra hour of sleep I decided to go to the newspaper offices to get a head start on this week's article. After eating a delicious kebab for breakfast, I got my camel out of the garage – an exquisite animal that I bought from a traveling merchant – and started to ride through the early morning streets of Istanbul. As I continued on my ride, the sun rose and became a bit unbearable, for I had forgotten to put on my "keffiyeh," so a brief respite under the shade of palm trees allured me. Thankfully, a street vendor passed by and I was able get a bottle of water. However, when he reached to take my dinar, I realized that the vendor was missing one of his hands – no doubt he had delved into thievery in his past. Nevertheless, I admired him for changing his ways and doing honest work. His missing hand reminded me to take an alternative route today, as it was a leisurely day on the main avenue. No need to spoil a sunny morning by making a spectacle. As much as I feel sorry for those poor souls though, their fate is actually better than those who are still in prison. With these grim thoughts in mind, I arrived at the office only to find that my request to go out of the country was once again denied. Nothing surprising. So, with the hope that next time I will be granted permission, I start this article.Let me start by saying that the above is complete fiction, but it might have fooled some people into buying into the post-"Midnight Express" climate. For many years, Turkey has more or less maintained a certain image with other countries, especially with the West. Adapted from the book of the same name, Alan Parker's movie cements those misconceptions that Turkey has struggled with since the era of the Ottoman Empire and bled through to the Republican era. However, the movie is only a stepping stone for the article today. After all, film producers can take great artistic liberty when it comes to telling a story, but when journalists – who have an obligation to know the truth and relay it – take a fact-bending approach to journalism, the least we can do is point out their flaws.Currently, even though the dated image of "Midnight Express" only persists in the minds of those who prefer to remain ignorant, those who pride themselves on being informed have only traded one ignorance in for another.Comprehending Turkey's realityWhen we delve into the matter of distorted images, the first thing that comes to my mind is the term "parachute journalism." In a previous article titled "Parachute Journalism in Turkey," we provided a synopsis of the story "Secret Temple" by Ömer Seyfettin. The story pokes fun at a misjudgment made by a person with a stereotypical concept of Turkey who thinks he knows Turkish culture as well as Turks do. During his stay at an old woman's home he tells his friend with joy: "I've found your secret temple." However, what he perceived as a holy place was nothing but a bucket placed under a leaking roof to prevent it from damaging the floor. Because of the dim light and the dripping water, he misjudged the place as a holy shrine. Every time I read this story it has made me smile and I am reminded of some foreign journalists' accounts of Turkey. Nearly a century has passed since Ömer Seyfettin's death, but the Western front remains the same and the same paralogisms continue.In the same article, we also gave a couple reasons for where the mistakes stem from, but let us delve into a couple of mistakes from the past year, ranging from the hilarious to the malicious.Also, as expats are already on the journalism scene in numerous op-ed sections, features and similar content, they can also share the categorical mistakes of parachute journalism even though they are not journalists per se. Newspapers are liable and they are not exempt from criticism if their op-ed writers make mistakes so visible that a simple fact check could spot.List of mistakesLet' us start with the most recent one, a mistake we also reviewed previously on this page in a piece titled "Curious Case of Norman Stone." As the title suggests, the mistake originated in the op-ed piece Professor Norman Stone wrote for The Guardian published on Dec. 6. He said in the article: "The aggressiveness of Turkish foreign policy is something new. It goes back to 2009 when, at Davos, President [Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan insulted Shimon Peres, then Israel's president, using the Turkish form of 'you' that is normally used for dogs, and accusing him of atrocities in Gaza. That went down very well with his home constituency, less well with Turks who think about things, and also went down well in the Arab world."There is simply no form of the word "you" in Turkish that are an insult. There is no form of "you" either that are reserved for dogs. Although Stone is not a journalist, he definitely feels confident enough to assert himself as an expert on Turkey's foreign relations in a global newspaper like The Guardian. In fact, his resume actually reflects his confidence as he has been teaching at Turkish universities for over a decade. So, he must be familiar enough with the language in order not to make a mistake this rudimentary. Alas, he also ignored Erdoğan's use of the honorific word "sayın," which means honorable, when mentioning Peres during his speech.The Guardian did not edit the mistake when we originally wrote on this two weeks ago. After nearly one month we see that they have now removed the mistake with no correction.Another mistake Stone made in the article was his claim that Turkey provoked Russia in the matter of its downed fighter jet. His exact words were: "If there is one lesson for a ruler of Turkey it is this: do not provoke Russia." The only explanation would be that he got it backward because we know that it was Russia that provoked Turkey in the incident by violating the border, a fact conveniently missing from the article, and did so again after Turkey reminded Russia about the rules of engagement when it comes to the Syrian border.Time magazine also had its share of incorrect statements in its publications of the past month. In an article titled "This Man Has the Toughest Job in Turkey" written by Jared Malsin and published on Nov. 11,. the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) was dubbed the main opposition party in Turkey. However, this is not true as the Republican People's Party (CHP) has been the main opposition party for quite some time. While the author later argues that the HDP is the most important opposition party in Turkey, the importance of a political party does not make it the main opposition. In Turkey, the definition of the main opposition is quite clear and an article on Turkish politics published in Time should at least make that distinction.Another factual mistake comes from France, this time in a Le Figario article published on Nov. 10 titled "Erdogan contraint l'Europe au grand écart" (Erdoğan forced Europe to a big gap). The article calls Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu the "chef de la diplomatie" or, in English, foreign minister, despite the fact that he has been prime minister for more than a year. The article has since been revised.Next up is a much more publicized mistake that was heavily criticized and later corrected by the New Statesmen. Written by Slovoj Zizek, the article "We need to talk about Turkey" commenced with the typical high horse attitude we often see in Western media. Let's get the most problematic part out of the way before dismantling it."In October 2015, Hakan Fidan, the head of Turkey's National Intelligence Organization [MİT] and the Turkish president's staunchest ally, condemned the Russian military intervention in Syria, accusing Moscow of trying to 'smother' Syria's Islamist revolution." 'ISIS is a reality and we have to accept that we cannot eradicate a well-organized and popular establishment such as the Islamic State [ISIS, DAESH]; therefore, I urge my western colleagues to revise their mindset about Islamic political currents, put aside their cynical mentality and thwart [Russian President] Vladimir Putin's plans to crush Syrian Islamist revolutionaries,' Anadolu Agency quoted Fidan as saying on Sunday."However, when we look at the Anadolu Agency (AA), we find that they quickly declared this attribution as being false. Where did Mr. Zizek get his information then? I assume he got it from somewhere even though there were no quotes in this part of the article. Later on it was revealed that the quote was published on a pro-Iranian website called AWD news – a website that has repeatedly made this type of false and extravagant accusation in its articles. One of their articles addressed how Putin yelled at the Turkish ambassador in Russia saying: "Tell your dictator president he can go to hell along with his ISIS terrorists, I will make Syria a 'Big Stalingrad' for him." In that case, AWD news falsely attributed its article to The Moscow Times even though the Kremlin already refuted the claim. On a side note, many in the Turkish media ran with the story for a while until the Russian statement makes them realize their mistake.Let us go back to Zizek's story though. Zizek's background as a prominent intellectual and the New Statesman's editorial influence failed to pass along a simple fact and jumped the gun with an extravagant and false claim – one that was shot down in a single day, no less. Zizek's failure to give credit where credit is due, even if the claim was false, also did not go unnoticed by critics. On a final note, the New Statesman revised the article and removed the aforementioned part.We are not the first to raise concern on these matters, and we will not be the last. The Kebap and Camel website has been going at it for some time and they do what their title implies – satirically dismantle factual errors and misconceptions about Turkey while pointing out editorial hiccups and uncovering malicious intent through witty journalism and turning of phrase. Hopefully, their attention to detail will keep the international media on its toes to not be repeat offenders. We will certainly be following these developments. In fact, their site's content regarding Le Figaro's mistake and Zizek's nonexistent sources were pivotal for the article. We have been looking for a Jon Stewart's "Daily Show"-type satirical content in Turkey for a while to hold media responsible with sarcasm. Kebap and Camel might very well be a good place to start.Just looking at the news stories of the last couple of months, much less at the whole year, has given us more than our fill in terms of factual mistakes. We did not even touch on the lies by omission or the deliberate misinformation by the Russian media following Turkey downing its jet. In any case, let me leave those for another article so I can ride out to the sunset on my trusty camel.