“Otherness” and Self-Censorship in the Land of Coups: Greek Correspondents in Turkey Pre- and Post-Coup Attempt

ABSTRACT

Greek correspondents are a unique species among the other foreign correspondents based in Turkey, due to their nationality; they have a delicate role of “otherness” since their home and host countries are neighbors with a long history of fragile relations. Set within the frame of the failed coup attempt in Turkey in July 2016, this research localizes the differences in the Greek correspondents’ job before and after the failed coup attempt bearing their “otherness”. Based on the collection of primary data through in-depth semi-structured interviews with all the Greek correspondents in Turkey, the findings were conceptualized within the Actor–Network Theory combined with the framework of Histoire Croisée. The results revealed that after the failed coup attempt their work has deteriorated by four major changes: encumbrance of their journalistic role due to their “otherness”, increase of self-censorship, more workload due to higher demand for stories and extinction of governmental and diplomatic sources. This research claims that the identity of the “opponent otherness” is a key factor aggravating the practices of foreign correspondents in times of political crises; lastly, it is revealed that when democracy is backsliding, local and foreign journalism are becoming parallelly ill and present a causality effect.

KEYWORDS:

• Foreign correspondents
• “opponent other”
• self-censorship
• failed coup attempt in Turkey
• Actor–Network Theory
• Histoire Croisée

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) was an English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer regarded as the founder of modern utilitarianism. He developed his idea of a circular building, applicable to prisons and allowing fewer staff, where the guard would be able to watch directly the prisoners without them seeing him; the innovation was that even without a guard, the prisoners would believe that they were still watched, creating an everlasting effect of being under constant surveillance and thus rehabilitation. In Bentham and Božovič (1995, 1) it is explained that:

[…] The panopticon writings consist of series of Letters written from Russia in 1787 “to a friend in England”, and two Postscripts written in 1790 and 1791 […]. The panopticon is nothing more than “a simple idea in architecture”, never realized, describing “a new mode of obtaining power or mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example”—the possessor of this power is “the inspector” with his invisible omnipresence, “an utterly dark spot” in the all-transparent, light-flooded universe of the panopticon […].

2 It worth mentioning that in the year of the failed coup attempt (2016), the number of imprisoned journalists in Turkey reached the highest number among all the years available in this database (CPJ, 1992–2021) and it reached the number of 86 journalists. For more detailed data by year, see https://cpj.org/data/imprisoned/.

3 Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF) “is a non-profit advocacy organization that promotes the rule of law, democracy, fundamental rights and freedoms, set up by a group of journalists who have been forced to live in self-exile in Stockholm, against the background of a massive crackdown on press freedom in Turkey” (https://stockholmcf.org/about-us/).

4 According to the creators of this website (https://turkeypurge.com/) it is “a website that was established with the aim of tracking the extensive witch-hunt in Turkey […] We are a small group of young journalists […] we keep a daily account of academics, military officers, police officers, teachers, government officials and bureaucrats who have been dismissed from their jobs as part of the ongoing purge”. It compiles data from PEN International (https://pen-international.org/), Platform for Independent Journalism ([P24] http://platform24.org/), Stockholm Center for Freedom ([SCF] https://stockholmcf.org/), Journalists’ Union of Turkey ([TGS] https://tgs.org.tr/), Progressive Journalists Association ([ÇGD] https://www.ifj.org/), and Bianet online news portal (https://bianet.org/).

5 The day after the failed coup attempt, eight Turkish soldiers fled to the border city of Alexandroupoli in Greece seeking refuge. They were arrested for illegal entry and led to court. Turkey demanded their extradition because they were suspected of being involved in the coup attempt. For fear of their lives, the soldiers requested asylum in Greece and asked to remain in detention. This quickly provoked the anger of the Turkish side and escalated in a tension between the two neighboring countries (Smith 2016).

6 They further argue that the key political developments that enabled the government to expand their authoritarianism and surveillance are the Gezi protests throughout the whole country in June 2013, the revelations of serious corruption cases incriminating high governmental members in December 2013, the extensive armed conflicts in the southeast region of Turkey in July 2015 and the failed coup attempt in July 2016.