Feb 13, 2018

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — “Ground zero at the border” was a term the Turkish media used frequently in the 1990s when Turkey carried out cross-border military operations into northern Iraq to pursue militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Journalists covering the operations would say they were reporting from “ground zero at the border” to emphasize that they were at the Turkish-Iraqi frontier. Yet, at times, some of those who made that claim would in reality be kilometers away from the border.

The Turkish media is back at “ground zero at the border,” but this time at the Syrian border, as the Turkish military presses ahead with its offensive on Kurdish-held Afrin. In the 1990s, the public had to rely largely on what the mainstream media reported, but today, in the digital era, people have easy access to various news sources via the internet. Agence France-Presse, for instance, reported that historical sites were damaged in the operation, even though the Turkish media did not mention the issue. Also, Turkish officials frequently emphasize that utmost attention is paid to avoid civilian casualties, but according to Robert Fisk, the veteran reporter of The Independent, civilians were hit as well. In the Turkish media, such reports could be found only in a few opposition news sites.

The Turkish media’s performance in the Afrin campaign had in fact become obvious from the very onset. Soon after the operation started, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim convened a meeting with senior media representatives to give them guidelines on how to cover the offensive. As part of the 15-point list, media organizations were reportedly urged to emphasize that the army was cautious about harming civilians and that the operation targeted not only the PKK and the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) but also the Islamic State (IS) and to avoid picking up foreign media reports without editing them.

Hamza Gul, a veteran journalist for an oppositional TV channel who has long reported from border regions and is now covering the Afrin operation, told Al-Monitor, “Unfortunately, television channels, newspapers and agencies that are close to and supportive of the government and that [have a track record of] manipulative reporting have erred again during this operation. Public and private channels broadcasting from the region [receive instructions] from their headquarters on what they should say and whom they should invite for commentaries.”

“In a sense,” he continued, “a country of 80 million gets the misperception that things are unfolding in the way reported from four or five live broadcasting spots.”