To be blunt: your favourite correspondent needs funds!
It’s going well with the visitor numbers of this website. Since it was launched in 2007 the numbers have grown from 15 (my parents and a handful of friends and colleagues) to 30,000 a month now, and 50,000 if I include the Dutch version. I am reaching an ever-growing public in not only my home country, the Netherlands, but also …
Denderleeuw – ‘We won!’ An employee of the Kurdish channel RojTV, broadcasting under a Danish license, enters the newsroom with a phone in his hand. He is on the line to Denmark, where the judge just announced the verdict in a case against RojTV, which is accused by the Turkish government of being a terrorist channel. Then everybody cheers: ‘We …
‘Turkish TV can’t cover the news’
ISTANBUL – Turkish journalists are getting more frustrated about the increasing censorship in their country. Whenever there is big news concerning the fight against the Kurdish PKK, immediately the phone calls from the government in Ankara start coming in with instructions. And so it was this morning, after the news that dozens of civilians were killed in an air strike …
ISTANBUL – Early Tuesday morning in several Turkish cities a total of at least eighteen journalists were detained. The raids are part of an investigation of people who are active in Kurdish political and public organisations, which has been going on for years. One of the detained journalists is Mustafa Özer, photographer for the international press agency AFP.
A total of
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Freelance correspondent doesn’t get satiated but specialized
After almost five years of freelance correspondence, somebody recently asked me if I’m not satiated by now. Am I still able to look at Turkey with ‘Dutch eyes’? Can I still think of stories that appeal to Dutch readers? ‘It is not for no reason’, this colleague and friend mailed me, ‘that correspondents with a contract rotate after about five …
Professional journalism? Not in Turkey!
Blue murder is being cried over the lack of press freedom in Turkey. You never hear about the other side of the medal: journalists give themselves too many freedoms. Journalist Banu Güven (photo): ‘Extreme language and polarization sell.’
There is a huge red board in the hallway at Hürriyet, one of the biggest papers in Turkey: Our Basic Principles …
Thousands of Turks protest for internet freedom
ISTANBUL –Tens of thousands of people have protested in several Turkish cities against censorship on the internet. The turnout was particularly high in Turkey’s biggest city Istanbul and in the western coastal city of Izmir.
In Istanbul at least 15,000 people turned out, especially young people up to about age 35. The protests were aimed against internet censorship in general, but …
Turmoil over sex tapes in Turkey
ISTANBUL – First they kiss rather clumsily, then a bit later they are laying on the bed together. She – a young student – on top. She moves, and he – an older, married politician – slaps her bottom. The sex videos of two politicians from the ultra nationalist National Action Party (MHP) have caused turmoil in Turkey. The men …
Demonstration for press freedom in Turkey
ISTANBUL – Several thousand people demonstrated for press freedom on Sunday in the Turkish city of Istanbul. Since two prominent journalists were arrested last week for alleged involvement in plans to topple the AKP government, solidarity among Turkish journalists is on the rise.
The demand for press freedom was reinforced by carrying portraits of arrested journalists. So far 68 journalists are …
Being a contract correspondent? Please, no!
Sometimes I am asked who sent me to Turkey. Which paper or broadcaster delegated me to this journalist’s paradise? Well, nobody. Or I should say: my boss. Me.
Entrepreneurship is the new form of foreign correspondence. And that means: look as far and wide as possible to where you can sell your stories, develop yourself in multimedia, specialize yourself, and look …
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