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 broadcaster 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, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, the United States, and Australia.
Zaman, sometimes stylized as ZAMAN, was a daily newspaper in Turkey. Zaman was a major, high-circulation daily before government seizure on 4 March 2016. It was founded in 1986 and was the first Turkish daily to go online in 1995. It contained national (Turkish), international, business, and other news. It also had many regular columnists covering current affairs, interviews, and a culture section. The newspaper is known for its closeness to Fethullah Gülen, the leader of the Gülen movement. The newspaper originally supported the Justice and Development Party (AKP), but became increasingly critical of that party and its leader, Turkish president and former prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, particularly after the AKP closed the 2013 December investigation into corruption. On 4 March 2016, in what activists and international media groups criticized as another blow to press freedom in Turkey, control of the newspaper was seized by the government. The takeover was motivated by the newspaper's ties to the Hizmet movement of Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, which the government accuses of attempting to establish a parallel state in Turkey.
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.
The Cihan News Agency was a Turkish news agency based in Istanbul.
Mehtap TV was a channel that began broadcasting on 19 June 2006 via the Turksat 2-A satellite. Murat Keskin was the executive editor of Mehtap TV. On 19 July 2016, its license was revoked and the channel closed by the Radio and Television Supreme Council due to alleged links with the Gülen Movement following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt. The channel is known for its closeness to Fethullah Gülen, the leader of the Gülen movement.
Muhammed Fethullah Gülen was a Turkish Muslim scholar, preacher, and leader of the Gülen movement who as of 2016 had millions of followers. Gülen was an influential neo-Ottomanist, Anatolian panethnicist, Islamic poet, writer, social critic, and activist–dissident developing a Nursian theological perspective that embraces democratic modernity. Gülen was a local state imam from 1959 to 1981 and he was a citizen of Turkey until his denaturalization by the Turkish government in 2017. Over the years, Gülen became a centrist political figure in Turkey prior to his being there as a fugitive. From 1999 until his death in 2024, Gülen lived in self-exile in the United States near Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania.
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.
Samanyolu Haber TV was one of the Turkish national news channels broadcasting internationally. It was launched after expansion of Samanyolu TV network which included Mehtap TV, Burc FM, Yumurcak TV, and Dünya Radyo . The channel is known for its closeness to Fethullah Gülen, the leader of the Gülen movement. Samanyolu TV was an international TV station, with its headquarters in Istanbul. On 30 April 2016, its license was revoked and the channel closed by the Radio and Television Supreme Council due to alleged links with the Gülen Movement following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt. It was also removed from Türksat. After this, Samanyolu Haber TV will not return along with Samanyolu TV until further notice.
ANS TV was a news television channel in Azerbaijan, which was owned by ANS Group of Companies from its foundation on 26 November 1991 until its closure on 18 July 2016. Its name, ANS, stands for Azerbaijani News Service.
The Gülen movement or Hizmet movement is an Islamist fraternal movement. It is a sub-sect of Sunni Islam based on a Nursian theological perspective as reflected in Fethullah Gülen's religious teachings. It is referred to by its members as the "Service" or "Community" and it originated in Turkey around the late 1950s. It is institutionalized in 180 countries through educational institutions as well as media outlets, finance companies, for-profit health clinics, and affiliated foundations that have a combined net worth in the range of 20–50 billion dollars as of 2015.
TGRT was a Turkish free-to-air television channel. Launched by İhlas Holding as one of Turkey's earliest private television broadcasters on April 22, 1993, it operated until February 2007 when it was replaced by FOX, whose parent company News Corporation had purchased the broadcasting rights of TGRT on July 25, 2006. The sale, which marked the first time a Turkish television channel was sold to foreign capital, included the broadcasting rights and the terrestrial broadcasting frequencies belonging to TGRT, but not the TGRT branding, which continues to exist as the corporate company name. The sister channels TGRT Haber, TGRT EU and TGRT Belgesel also remain with İhlas Holding.
Yumurcak TV was a Turkish children's television channel owned and operated by Samanyolu Yayıncılık A.Ş. Launched on 25 June 2007, it was closed and had its license revoked by the Radio and Television Supreme Council on 19 July 2016 due to alleged links with the Gülen Movement following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt.
Ekrem Dumanlı is a Turkish newspaper executive and, since 2001, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Zaman. He is also the Chief Executive Officer of its English-language version, Today's Zaman.
The political conflict between the AKP-ruled Turkish government and the Gülen movement of Fethullah Gülen began in 2013.
Hatice Beril Dedeoğlu was a Turkish academic who served as the Minister of European Union Affairs in the interim election government led by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu between 22 September and 17 November 2015. Having taken over from the previous interim cabinet minister Ali Haydar Konca following his resignation, Dedeoğlu served until Davutoğlu formed a new government after the November 2015 snap general election. She was, as required by the Constitution, of no political affiliation and was one of two women to serve in the interim cabinet, the other being Family and Social Policy Minister Ayşen Gürcan.
In the evening of 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 lived 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.
Since 2016, the government of Turkey has conducted a series of purges, enabled by a state of emergency in reaction to the failed coup attempt on 15 July that year. The purges began with the arrest of Turkish Armed Forces personnel reportedly linked to the coup attempt but arrests were expanded to include other elements of the Turkish military, as well as civil servants and private citizens. These later actions reflected a power struggle between secularist and Islamist political elites in Turkey, affected people who were not active in nor aware of the coup, but who the government claimed were connected with the Gülen movement, an opposition group which the government blamed for the coup. Possession of books authored by Gülen was considered valid evidence of such a connection and cause for arrest.
Turkey's media purge after the failed coup d'état on July 15, 2016 resulted in the shutdown of at least 131 media outlets and the arrest of 117 journalists – at least 35 of whom have been indicted for "membership in a terror group".
Şefkat Tepe was a Turkish action, military, drama and crime series. The series was set in 1997.
Hidayet Karaca was the general manager of the Samanyolu Media Group and chairman of the now-closed Samanyolu TV.
