Holding a mirror to oneself

The phrase "13th Year" has been appearing beneath the Yeni Şafak logo for some time now. The newspaper has left 13 years behind since it began its publication life. A newborn child after 13 years is still considered a child, albeit at the stage of adolescence, but for a newspaper, 13 years is quite a long time. Those who were 27 years old during the establishment phase of Yeni Şafak have reached the age of 40 today and have spent the most dynamic youth years of their lives during this period. Indeed, Yeni Şafak has continued for 13 years by expanding its staff day by day, but the vast majority of those who served in the management of the newspaper on the first day still continue to work in management or other units. These 13 years have built an invaluable accumulation of experience, especially in making this staff fully mature in the journalism profession, mastering all the subtleties of the profession, and achieving an inseparable integration among themselves. During this period, the newspaper has also served as a school where many individuals significantly developed their journalistic and intellectual careers.

Today, the newspaper's circulation figure has settled stably into the 120,000–130,000 band. This figure is still not enough to enter the top ten in circulation rankings, but there is no doubt that Yeni Şafak ranks in the top band in terms of its impact on setting the agenda.

Postmodern situation analysts express the continuous self-inspection of institutions—not merely thinking, but thinking about what they think—with the concept of "self-reflexivity." Yeni Şafak is undoubtedly a newspaper with a very high level of self-reflexivity. It never holds back from reflecting on itself and constantly trying to hold up a mirror to itself.

Last weekend, at a meeting attended by the newspaper's writers and editors, the newspaper's attitude toward different approaches to news, and its approaches to police, judicial, and tabloid news were thoroughly discussed. One of the most frequently addressed issues was the newspaper's relations with "power/governance."

"Pro-government" stands like a label attached to the image of the newspaper when viewed from the outside. Yet this is a very unfair label. Surely, there is no such thing as "being close to whoever is in power." Moreover, there are media outlets that establish their relations with power precisely within this framework, and that label fits them much better.

However, during the intense February 28 process that lasted until the November 3 elections, Yeni Şafak newspaper predominantly used the language of opposition. Precisely due to this network of relations, as Fehmi Koru said at the meeting, perhaps Yeni Şafak is a newspaper that gifted Turkey a precious government. But the newspaper is undoubtedly far from defining its entire existence based on its relationship with the current government; it is an actor with its own unquestionable existence on the Turkish intellectual and political stage.

No one can expect Yeni Şafak to instantly shift into an opposition rank with stereotyped roles just because cadres with whom it had very close relations came to power over time. Conversely, just because these cadres came to power, it cannot be expected that Yeni Şafak suspend its journalistic mission and give unconditional support to the government or the power from now on. It can be demonstrated in many examples that the most effective and fruitful opposition to government actions was again made by this newspaper. Fruitfulness in opposition means being effective on government policies and achieving results regarding government actions. Thanks to this, in many issues in domestic politics, including notably the motion incident, the Şemdinli affair, Northern Iraq policies, sending troops to Lebanon, Article 301 discussions, and freedoms, Yeni Şafak's attitude was never within a framework that approved and supported the stance of power; on the contrary, it fit precisely into a framework that demonstrated an example of "fruitful opposition" very well. In this respect, Yeni Şafak's relations with power possess an original line capable of constituting a topic for a communication sociology thesis on "power-media" relations.

For example, the newspaper has readers who punish it by canceling their subscriptions because it publishes tabloid news. Yet the interest of those same readers' children in tabloids does not cease and continues to be fed from other channels. Since we do not have room left, we cannot go into details, so let us suffice it to state that Yeni Şafak newspaper continues its search to offer what is most suitable in every respect for its reader.