‘Shame on you,’ Amanpour reacts to Turkish daily that published fake interview

ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News

Takvim dedicated its cover on June 18 to a fake interview with Christiane Amanpour under the headline 'dirty confession.'

Senior CNN anchorwoman Christiane Amanpour has expressed her indignation over Turkish daily Takvim’s publishing of a bogus interview with her its June 18 edition.

“Shame on you @Takvim for publishing FAKE interview with me,” Amanpour posted on her Twitter account, after Takvim published a fake “interview” with her in which she said the CNN editorial board had made her cover recent events with the intention of “destabilizing” Turkey for international business interests, among a long list of other lies.

Takvim had dedicated its cover to the story under the headline “dirty confession,” with a subtitle reporting that Amanpour confessed “We did everything for money.”

It was all arranged to look like a genuine article, but the newspaper put a tiny note at the end of the webpage story admitting it was not a real interview and that they were doing this to “get back at” CNN's “lies” during the recent Gezi Park protests. A disclaimer also existed in the newspaper itself, stating: “This interview is not real, but what you will read here is real.” The fake report drew a fierce reaction from Turkish social media users.

“Petrol, medicine, alcoholic beverage producers and giant finance lobbies threatened us,” Amanpour was quoted as saying.

Mevlüt Yüksel, who wrote the fake interview, also appeared wearing a mock CNN visitor card in a photo on the front page of Takvim.

‘Hi Christiane, it's just sarcasm’

After Amanpour's reaction, Yüksel answered back via his own Twitter account, tweeting: “Hi Christiane, I am the reporter of the fake interview. Do you really think it is true... It's just sarcasm,” he wrote. “If you want to contact me... Ask @arwaCNN,” he added, in reference to CNN’s senior correspondent Arwa Damon.

CNN International was one of the most-watched outlets during the June 11 police intervention against peaceful protesters. Amanpour quickly become a social media hot topic when she ended her interview with one of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s advisers, İbrahim Kalın, by saying: “The show is over, sir.”

Leading figures of the Turkish government have repeatedly condemned CNN International's coverage of the Gezi Park unrest in Turkey.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has complained the international media “exaggerated” what happened in Turkey.