What you do not like is your own image
We would have been extremely surprised if you ever understood journalism and the job we do. We do not issue a political party’s newsletter disguised as a newspaper or a news channel.
We present to the public an umbrella structure which is open to all views, where writers and commentators who have exactly opposite views make their voices heard.
In our talk shows and political debates, we open our doors to all political views, whoever accepts our invitations.
Well, we are reporting; we are doing journalism. These concepts may be foreign to you but we are not the voice of “a master” in its ugliest, lowest form.
Only our press cards are yellow; no other aspects of our journalism can be defined as “yellow.” We strive to maintain this.
Our responsibility is to our readers, our listeners and to our viewers and if we have any guilt, as any other citizen, our responsibility is to justice, which we insist on trusting.
We do not report daily to party officials or answer to those “bigheads who phone us.”
We are aware that if we do our job badly then we will not be read and we will not be viewed; we work with this responsibility.
We receive our “funds” only from this mass of readers, viewers, listeners and ad-givers who want to be heard and/or seen by this mass. We do not swim in pools filled with “Now, everybody throw some 100 million.”
For 67 years, during all eras we were the target of every power group; we know that. We do not do this job for the powerful to pat our shoulders.
We are not the center of public relations or the propaganda of a political party. We do not take orders or instructions; we are after news stories. We do not generate fear; we generate information.
We are not afraid of your piece of rag palavers that have no logic, no intellect and no conscience in them; we are afraid of bad journalism, low-quality broadcasting and not being able to do our jobs properly.
Don’t we ever make mistakes? Of course we do and we are grieved when we do. But we know how to face our mistakes, to make self-criticism, to answer to our readers, our viewers and if needed to apologize.
We have control mechanisms in harmony with universal journalism values; we have the courage and self-esteem to give any account openly.
We do not do our jobs for anybody to love us.
Our job is to mirror the truth; if you do not like what you see, we would ask you to see a specialist.
We know that the real reason of the attack launched against daily Hürriyet and other media organs of the Doğan Group does not stem from the distorted nonsense you handpicked, but from your own image that you do not like, we know.
We know that the weight of our word and our existence scares you.
We are not afraid of your merciless lies. We are not intimidated; only that we find these moods of yours sad.
We regard them as very sad, very sad…