Country | Turkey |
---|---|
Broadcast area | Worldwide |
Headquarters | Ulus, Ankara, Turkey |
Programming | |
Language(s) | English |
Picture format | 16:9 |
Ownership | |
Owner | TRT |
Sister channels | |
History | |
Launched | 18 May 2015 (test broadcast) 30 June 2015 |
Replaced | TRT International |
Links | |
Website | www |
Availability | |
Streaming media | |
trtworld.com | Watch live |
TRT World is a Turkish public broadcaster which broadcasts in English 24 hours a day and is operated by the TRT and based in the Ulus quarter of Ankara. It provides worldwide news and current affairs focusing on Turkey, Europe, Africa, and Western and Southern Asia. [1] In addition to its headquarters based in Ankara, TRT World has broadcasting centres and studios in Washington, D.C. and London. It is a member of the Association for International Broadcasting.
The network has received criticism for failing to meet accepted journalism ethics and standards for independence and objectivity, with some commentators especially in the West calling it a mouthpiece or propaganda arm of the Erdoğan administration. [2] [3] [4] [5] TRT World claims that it is financially and editorially independent from the administration, and that its news gathering and reporting activities are just like those of other publicly funded broadcasters around the world, with a mission to show a non-Turkish audience events from Turkey's viewpoint. [6] [7] [4] However, according to Reporters Without Borders, Turkey in 2023 ranked 165th out of 180 countries in press freedom. [8]
In addition to those listed below, TRT World runs various once-off documentaries. Current programmes on the channel are:
In 2023 TRT World was awarded an international Emmy for its documentary on the war in Ukraine.
In 2018 TRT World was nominated in five categories at the Drum Online Media Awards:
In March 2020, the United States Justice Department required TRT World's Washington operation to register as an agent of the Government of Turkey, engaged in political activities, under the anti-propaganda Foreign Agents Registration Act. TRT World's argument that it is independent was rejected by US officials who found and claim that the Turkish government "exercises direction and control of TRT by regulation and oversight, and by controlling its leadership, budget, and content." [7] Apart from some Russian and Chinese networks, other state-funded media including the Qatari-backed Al Jazeera, British-backed BBC News, French-backed France 24 and German-backed Deutsche Welle had not been determined to be foreign-government agents. [13]
In a 2019 op-ed in The Washington Post , MEMRI's executive director Steven Stalinsky surmised TRT World as "a propaganda arm of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's regime", similar to the Russian RT network. He notes that the channel offered only enthusiastically promotional coverage of the Turkish military's Operation Peace Spring in Syria, while according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the government banned critical news coverage domestically. Stalinsky urges human rights activists, journalists, and others not to appear on and legitimise the network's shows, just as they would not appear on RT. [3]
Following the 2016 Turkish coup attempt, some journalists who had recently joined the company resigned. [14] [15] One of those who resigned said: "I no longer hold out any hope that this channel will become what I wanted it to become (...) After the coup, it became very apparent that the channel had no intention of actually covering it properly, in a professional, international broadcast standard."[ citation needed ] The managing editor at the time said that he "never received a phone call from Ankara trying to frame the broadcast or give them talking points." [16]
More recently as of March 2020 with the Evros border crisis, TRT World and other Turkish media have in a way, accelerated on producing fake news as alleged by the Greek government, as was also mentioned by Prime Minister of Greece Kyriakos Mitsotakis in a CNN interview twice, [17] stating that the reports all come from Turkish media and other unknown sources aiming to discredit the Hellenic Coast Guard and Hellenic Armed Forces efforts with propaganda videos. TRT World claimed that Greece sent back refugee vessels to Turkish waters, which was denied by Greece. [18] Conversely, there have been reports by other sources of Greek coastal authorities forcing the refugee vessels back to Turkish side, in a military strategy dubbed "push back". [19]
The Republic of Turkey was created after the overthrow of Sultan Mehmet VI Vahdettin by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in 1922 by the new Republican Parliament in 1923. This new regime delivered the coup de grâce to the Ottoman state which had been practically wiped away from the world stage following the First World War.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is a Turkish politician who is the 12th and current president of Turkey. He previously served as prime minister from 2003 to 2014 as part of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), which he co-founded in 2001. He also served as mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1998.
The Turkish Radio and Television Corporation is the national public broadcaster of Turkey, founded in 1964. TRT was for many years the only television and radio provider in Turkey. Before the introduction of commercial radio in 1990, and subsequently commercial television in 1992, it held a monopoly on broadcasting. More recent deregulation of the Turkish television broadcasting market produced analogue cable television. Today, TRT broadcasts around the world, including in Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia, the United States, and Australia.
The National Intelligence Organization, also known by its Turkish initials MIT or MİT, or colloquially as the Organization, is an intelligence agency of the Turkish government tasked with gathering information of national interests. It gathers information for the Presidency and the Armed Forces about the current and potential threats from inside and outside against all the elements that make up Turkey's integrity, constitutional order, existence, independence, security and national power and take precautions when necessary.
The mass media in Turkey includes a wide variety of domestic and foreign periodicals expressing disparate views, and domestic newspapers are extremely competitive. However, media ownership is concentrated in the hands of a few large private media groups which are typically part of wider conglomerates controlled by wealthy individuals, which limits the views that are presented. In addition, the companies are willing to use their influence to support their owners' wider business interests, including by trying to maintain friendly relations with the government. The media exert a strong influence on public opinion. Censorship in Turkey is also an issue, and in the 2000s Turkey has seen many journalists arrested and writers prosecuted. On Reporters Without Borders' Press Freedom Index it has fallen from being ranked around 100 in 2005 to around 150 in 2013.
Roj TV was an international Kurdish satellite television station broadcasting programmes in the Kurmanji, Sorani and Hewrami dialects of the Kurdish language as well as in Persian, Zaza, Arabic, and Turkish.
Iran–Turkey relations are the bilateral relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Turkey. The two states' relationship is complex and characterized by periods of both tension and cooperation, as both Iran and Turkey are fighting for influence in the Middle East through supporting opposing proxies as part of a proxy conflict. The two countries are also major trade partners and are perceived as mutually interdependent due to geographical proximity as well as historically shared cultural, linguistic, and ethnic traits.
Ghida Fakhry is a Lebanese-British journalist. She was a lead anchor for the global news channel Al Jazeera English at its launch in Washington D.C., and was later one of the primary anchors at the network's headquarters in Doha. She was also the host of Witness, a documentary program.
Censorship in Turkey is regulated by domestic and international legislation, the latter taking precedence over domestic law, according to Article 90 of the Constitution of Turkey.
Democratic initiative process is the name of the process in which the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan launched a project aiming to improve standards of democracy, freedoms and respect for human rights in Turkey. The project is called the Unity and Fraternity Project. Interior Minister Beşir Atalay stated the primary goals of the initiative as improving the democratic standards and to end terrorism in Turkey. "We will issue circulars in the short term, pass laws in the medium term, and make constitutional amendments in the long term and take required steps," Prime Minister Erdoğan said.
Serbian–Turkish relations are foreign relations between Serbia and Turkey. Serbia has an embassy in Ankara and a consulate-general in Istanbul. Turkey has an embassy in Belgrade. Both countries are full members of the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) and the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC). Turkey is a member of NATO. Serbia instead is not a member of NATO.
Saudi Arabia and Turkey relations have long fluctuated between cooperation and alliance to enmity and distrust. Since the 19th century, the two nations have always had a complicated relationship. While Turkey and Saudi Arabia are major economic partners, the two have a tense political relationship, deemed from the historic enmity.
Witness is the flagship documentary television program that airs on Al Jazeera English. The program showcases documentaries commissioned by independent filmmakers around the world. The films focus on stories that receive less international coverage and "people at the margins of society."
Türkmeneli Televizyonu, or simply Türkmeneli TV, is a television station in Iraq which broadcasts the interests of the Iraqi Turkmen community. It is available on two satellites: Turksat and Nilesat, and broadcasts in the Turkish and Arabic languages. The channel produces a variety of programmes, such as news, documentaries on Iraqi Turkmen history, language, politics, and music.
The Presidential Complex is the presidential residence of the Republic of Turkey. The complex is located in the Beştepe neighborhood of Ankara, inside the Atatürk Forest Farm.
On 15 July 2016, a faction within the Turkish Armed Forces, organized as the Peace at Home Council, attempted a coup d'état against state institutions, including the government and president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. They attempted to seize control of several places in Ankara, Istanbul, Marmaris and elsewhere, such as the Asian side entrance of the Bosphorus Bridge, but failed to do so after forces and civilians loyal to the state defeated them. The Council cited an erosion of secularism, elimination of democratic rule, disregard for human rights, and Turkey's loss of credibility in the international arena as reasons for the coup. The government said it had evidence the coup leaders were linked to the Gülen movement, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the Republic of Turkey and led by Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish businessman and a well-known Islamic scholar who lives in exile in Pennsylvania. The Turkish government alleged that Gülen was behind the coup and that the United States was harboring him. Events surrounding the coup attempt and the purges in its aftermath reflect a complex power struggle between Islamist elites in Turkey.
Turkey Blocks is an independent digital research organization that monitors internet access restrictions and their relation to political incidents in Turkey. Using its network of monitoring probes, the project has uncovered and documented systematic mass-censorship of communications infrastructure, primarily social media services, during national emergencies and incidents of political significance relating to human rights, freedom of expression and public policy in the region.
Andrea Sanke is an American television journalist. She currently works as a senior presenter for TRT World in Istanbul.
The Alex Salmond Show is a UK weekly political talk show hosted by former First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, which premiered on RT on 16 November 2017. The guests have included various political and public figures. The show airs every Thursday on RT UK at 07:30, 12:30 and 22:30. The show was produced by Slainte Media, a production company co-owned by Salmond and former SNP MP Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh. On 24 February 2022, it was announced that the show was suspended on RT until further notice in response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Nation's Library of the Presidency, also commonly referred to as the Presidential Library, is the largest library in Turkey, with a collection of over 4 million printed books and over 120 million electronic editions published in 134 languages. The Presidential Library was officially inaugurated by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on February 21, 2020. In addition to receiving a copy of materials printed in the country as a depository library, the Presidential Library also receives books from every country where Turkey has a diplomatic mission, in collaboration with the Foreign Ministry. It is home to the Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk, the first comprehensive dictionary of Turkic languages, compiled in 1072–74 by the Turkic scholar Mahmud Kashgari, among many other manuscripts and rare books.