ANKARA
After Reuters posted a job advert targeting Türkiye and its president, the country’s communications director said on Saturday that the Britain-based news agency appeared to “shift away from the facts.”
“Reuters seems to shift away from the facts and instead employ a biased perspective about what has happened to ‘modern secular traditions’ in Türkiye during President (Recep Tayyip) Erdogan’s rule. These statements would only make sense on a propaganda leaflet,” Fahrettin Altun said on Twitter.
Emphasizing that such behavior was “not journalism,” the Altun said that a media outlet “should ask their journalists on the ground about the facts before deciding what has happened and using it as guideline for news.”
He suggested Reuters “juxtapose these sentences with their commitment to principles of journalism: ‘Founded in 1851, it is committed to the Trust Principles of independence, integrity and freedom from bias’.”
Also responding to the Reuters advert for a deputy bureau chief in Istanbul, Turkish English-language broadcaster TRT World published a listing of its own to employ a London-based correspondent, drawing attention to the political instability and economic problems in the UK, and the fact that the country is still ruled by a monarch in the 21st century.
TRT World used similar — yet more temperate — wording in the advert, refraining from targeting a specific political leader.
