While the media is the obvious place for assessing public opinion on a subject concerning the daily life, important events or even foreign policy, public's view on the media itself seldom find a voice in the papers. This also makes it hard to set a bar to compare and improve ourselves as a newspaper.Of course that doesn't mean that we don't have indicators to determine whether or not we are on the right course. Circulation numbers of the newspapers or individual visitor numbers of the news websites are two of these indicators but numbers do not always translate into quality, only popularity. We also have the reactions of our readers to individual news stories, columns or supplements. After all, just like the mail rooms in the past, e-mail folders of the reporters, editors or ombudsmen are filled with reader comments on the newspaper itself. But that doesn't vie us the lay of the land completely either. While the ability of reaching editorial staff via mail is indeed easy enough, it usually takes a certain determination or feeling towards a particular news story. This can be either positive or negative but nevertheless it almost always tends to be stronger than the average. So that means that as a newspaper we do not have the inherent ability to reach the views of the silent majority or the indifferent ones. We can either remain indifferent to them and continue to live in our glass houses pretending to be everything is alright or we can conduct surveys vie poll companies to ask specific questions on where the media stands in the eye of the public.Such a survey was undertaken recently in Turkey by the A&G Research Company on March 2016. 22.318 subjects were asked a series of questions in order to find out the current media perception in Turkey. The newspapers which were featured in the research were mainly national papers and only those printed in Turkish. In another words newspapers like Daily Sabah or Hürriyet Daily News which were printed in English didn't enter the research. However considering Daily Sabah also belongs to the same parent company Turkuaz Media Group as Sabah, one can say we do have a horse in the game if you pardon the expression.All is well and good when the perception Turkish media in the eyes of the Turkish populace is researched but the benefit of it seems to be only to the said newspapers. So one might wonder why we are also featuring the research on the Daily Sabah, a newspaper printed in English in the first place. Answer is simple. It appears that perception of the international media and journalists from other countries on the current situation of the Turkish media can be flawed when it comes to assessing where Turkish people stand on the point. We have seen many cases where parachute journalism overestimating the effect of some media companies while underestimating the popularity of the others. So I hope that this research would be a better indicator on where the Turkish media stands when it concerns the general populace.Demographics of the surveyBefore going into the questions that merits an answer according to the research itself, first let us to look at the demographics. Field work of the research or in another words Q&A section with the subjects was done between March 5-15, 2016. From the total number of 22.318, 10.601 of them were women. In order for a good representation subjects were chosen from all seven geographical regions of the Turkey with 44 cities, 1.126 districts and villages. Also it was stated that the distribution of the population between rural and urban areas were considered during the selection process. Company also projected maximum of 2,5 error margin.Another plus side of the research was that the questioning phase of the survey was done with face to face meetings with the subjects instead of using telephone calls or web polls in order to collect the data. Only the people above 20 years old was selected as subjects as well.Another important point stated at the start of the research was that even the answers of the people who stated that they do not buy or read newspapers were considered in case of some questions. Considering this was a perception research, learning of an outsider's view on the newspapers could be beneficial.Figures are not everythingPrepared according to data from A&G Research Co.Let's kick it off with the most obvious question in the research. "What are the most frequently read newspaper?"Across the country it appears that the Posta daily came first with 20.2 percent followed by the Turkish Sabah daily with 19.3 percent. Third newspaper in this category was Hürriyet daily with 17.5 followed by Milliyet and Habertürk with percentages of 14.3 and 12 respectively. This means that in the top five Doğan Media Group had two, Turkuaz and Ciner Media Groups along with Demirören Holding had one newspaper each. Considering the difference between Posta and Sabah at the top is less than 1 percent we can see a diferenc in the leadership in this category in future surveys.It is important to note here that those who do not read a newspaper were represented by 33 percent here. A percentage near to the total number of the readers who opt for the two most read newspapers. This also indicates that even though the reasons for these people to opt for not reading a newspaper are quite varied it also presents an opportunity since undoubtedly a good chunk of those people could fall into the category of those reading a newspaper in the future with the correct steps.When we disregard the 33 percent of non-readers, rankings of the top five still remains the same with slight changes as Posta goes up to 30.9 percent, Sabah goes up to 29.6 and Hürriyet sits at 26.8 percent. When looking at Ankara, İstanbul and İzmir we see that the general average and ranking changes as Hürriyet is at the lead in the nations' capital. In İstanbul Sabah is leading with 23,6 percent while İzmir has the daily Sözcü.When it comes to level of education, ranking also changes slightly. In this case of those graduated from college, Hürriyet is at 23.5, Posta is at 23.4 and Sabah is at 20.6 percent. Of those who stated that they are not reading any of the newspapers, 18 percent of them were graduated from a college.An important categorySecond important subject in the survey is a term we used in this page quite frequently: Credibility. According to the survey, Turkish public finds the Sabah daily most trustworthy with a 12.7 percent. This was followed by Hürriyet with a 7.9, Posta with 6.4 percent. Milliyet and Habertürk is at 6 and 5.5 percentages respectively. The rankings of the Ankara, İstanbul and İzmir is similar to the previous category as well.When we left out those who doesn't read newspapers the percentage of Sabah rose to 16, Hürriyet to 10.3 and Posta to 8.5 while the ranking is slightly changing as the Sözcü overtake Habertürk with 0.1 percent. We congratulate Sabah for its lead in this very if not the most important category.Women and the younger generationIn numerous instances we complained about the patriarchy in the media and how the current state of the newspapers is at risk of alienating their female readers. While the Daily Sabah has more or less equal number of men and women when it comes to its editorial staff, many newspapers don't have a similar composition. So let us look at what the women think about the Turkish newspapers. In this case I believe percentages complied from their answers instead of whole subject pool would be more relevant and therefore we will feature that one.When women were asked about which newspaper they think is closest to them, the answer with an 18.7 percent was Posta daily. In this case the gap between the lead and the second seems quite far as the Hürriyet came second with only 7.3 and Sabah is in the third place with just 6.2 percent.Another important demographic is of course the younger generation especially if the newspapers and mainstream media wants to stay relevant in the face of new methods of journalism we see in the web. So the survey asked to the people who were between the ages of 20 and 30 about which newspaper they think was closer to the younger generation. Just like in the previous category, Posta daily is in the lead with 14.2 percent and followed by Hürriyet with 8 percent. Sabah came third with 5.2 percent. However the next bit was different from previous categories as Fanatik a sports daily came fourth and pushed Habertürk and Milliyet to 5th and 6th place.In these two categories it seems that Sabah seems to stay well below its average considering its numbers in the previous categories. Even though 19 percent of the subject pool said that they read the Sabah it appears that almost half of that number isn't happy with the newspaper when it comes to its appeal to women and younger generation. So there is definitely room for improvement there.Lastly let us look at the newspaper supplements. The supplements of the newspapers especially in Turkey continues to be an important factor when a reader choose the newspaper they want to subscribe. Considering newspapers are starting to turn into carbon copies of each other in many with the agency sourced news articles continues to increase their space, supplements still maintain a more acceptable ratio of original news articles. So when the survey asks to the subject pool which newspaper has the best supplements the media companies should pay special attention to the results. In terms of supplements Posta came once again first with 10.6 percent followed by Hürriyet with a 7.7 percent. Sabah is the third with 6.9 percent and following it with a 0.1 percent less percentage comes the Habertürk. Fifth one is the Milliyet with 4 percent.It appears so far that Posta, Sabah and Hürriyet dailies occupied the top three in most of these categories. In terms of credibility Sabah is in the lead but when it comes to addressing women and younger generation it lags behind. While Sözcü daily usually sits below 6th or 7th in most categories in İzmir this usually changes, even in some cases causes to overtake national leaders in the city.The survey is actually answering a several more questions ranging from the design of the newspapers to the effects of headlines but let us leave them for another week. We hope that our foreign colleagues also find this survey helpful as it gives the layout of what the Turkish people feels about its media. Even though the survey didn't include the Daily Sabah or similar newspapers this time, in the future we hope that this would change.