The Media's Power

Today we got to experience something that most students, or people for that matter, will never get to experience in their lives. As we were sitting in a café on the Bosporus sipping on our chi and apple tea, Elif decides to call up a friend that works for a major television network station in Istanbul. Atv Television is the television station, and within an hours time we are on our way to see the station and meet the news anchors! When we first arrived at the station we were all standing around uncomfortably and confused as to why we are getting this privilege to enter, as were the people working there. As we walked by they were all staring at us, obviously knowing we were Americans and wondering why we were exploring their office on this Friday afternoon.

Elif meet up with her friend and he led us into the office of the Executive Editor, Cengiz Er. Even more astonished now we walk into his office and each introduced ourselves, as if we might be important people. We each take a seat and Cengiz excuses himself in Turkish saying that he does not speak English, because in his generation it was not important to learn. The first thing I notice when we walk in is the large stack of newspapers sitting on his desk, one that is open that he was reading just moments before we entered. Although we were at a television station, they have to keep up with all the other news sources constantly. Along with the newspapers, there were six televisions on his back wall, so he was continuously be watching his news station and his competitors. Even during our conversation he would scan the televisions behind us and bring his attention right back to the conversation, but still keeping in mind all of the news streaming behind us. Obviously being an important man at the station, we did not want to take too much of his time, so after we chatted for a bit we walked over to another office.

The next office we entered was no let down either. We come to realize that the beautiful woman sitting at the desk in front of us is one of the news anchors for the station, Daphne. She is the anchor of a nightly news segment, and although she said she had been in the business for 20 years, she looked as though she was 30 at the oldest. She spoke English, because she was younger, so we could communicate with her much better. She was interested to know what our perception of Turkey was before we came and now, as most people here are. As I have written before, I really knew nothing about Turkey before I entered the country. I knew it wasn’t a desert with camels, but what it was, I did not know. Then I realized, being in a newsroom why I knew nothing about Turkey, because American news stations do not broadcast anything about Turkey. Sure, we all hear and see pictures of Iraq and Syria all the time, but Turkey is never on the agenda for American news stations. So if there is no coverage of the Turkish news, how could I know anything about it unless I did other research on my own?

Many people were worried about me going to Turkey because of the bordering countries on the East side, solely based on the violence that occurs their on television. However, Istanbul is actually a cosmopolitan city and extremely westernized, yet we only see that parts that want to be seen by American news stations. After we talked to Daphne, we met another very nice woman who worked for the station. She had only worked for the station for a month and a half, but had been in the business in London for many years. She told us a story of when Hilary Clinton came to the station she worked at in London and it was her job to introduce her to everyone and get her to where she needed to be on time. When it came for Hilary to do her interview, she was told by Hilary’s people that she would not go on the air unless Hilary’s people got to choose the students from a specific university that would be in the interview with her and that the women all had to be wearing burqas. And then it all made perfect sense. Of course we all know news stations are biased and only show what they want the viewer to see, but this real life example took me to the extreme. The United States only wants the perception of the Middle East and surrounding countries to be of suppressed women wearing burqas, even though in Turkey most women don’t wear the full burqa, usually only a headscarf, but many more now a days don’t wear anything to cover their heads at all.

It was so interesting to then travel to the newsroom, where they were doing live coverage and having a television show right in front of us. With people in the newsroom shouting out orders in Turkish to get the right pictures and images that they wanted on the screen. But those images are all chosen very wisely and everything that the viewer sees is never random. Whether in Turkey or the United States the media plays the largest role in how we perceive other countries, it is how we get our news, and it is what we rely on. Without it we would know nothing about the outside world, but with it you have to look at it with an objective eye to distinguish what is truth and what is being played to catch the viewers attention and leave a specific image in their minds.