While theoreticians, who analyze world politics through media continue to guess what will happen throughout the year by looking at the New Year’s cover of The Economist, another magazine has been clearly conveying the developments to its readers without any encoded messages by events and people put on the cover. Considering the closest ones to home, this magazine covered many topics ranging from the headscarf discussions to Naim Süleymanoğlu’s success at the Olympic Games after filtering them through an American and Western perspective.

The New York-based magazine registered as TIME started to be published weekly in 1923, later spreading to Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, South Pacific and South America over the years. The only constants of the magazine were its publication language being English and foretelling the future through local and international events or figures that were put on to the cover.

While Charlie Chaplin who made it to the cover in 1925 became a leading force in cinema, Mahatma Gandhi who was on a 1931 cover of the magazine became a world-renowned figure in the following years. Similarly, TIME had put Nazi Germany’s Commander of the Naval Forces Erich Raeder on its cover in 1942 and touched on his passive nature and military blunders. Raeder resigned from his post the following year; “he had no idea about submarine warfare. He never cared about it. He was obsessed with ships; yet, he failed to equip them with a substantial air force. He probably was the weakest link of the Nazi Army” were some of the comments that continued to haunt Raeder for many more years. Talking about the future of computers in 1983 and covering the internet in 1990s, the magazine was the most prominent conveyor of political developments.

Leaders deemed authoritarian by TIME were deposed via coups

Putting coups carried out in many countries to its cover, the magazine came to be known as a “coup-loving” publication because of its disposition towards the events. The 1953 Iran, 1954 Panama and 1973 Chile coups were all narrated as the fall of a dictator and the victory of the public.

TIME never skipped the coups in Turkey, as well. While the magazine is mostly known for its cover with Kenan Evren and the caption “Holding Turkey Together,” this wasn’t the first such incident at TIME.

In 1958, Adnan Menderes was put on the cover with the caption “Turkey’s Premier Menderes.” The magazine wrote the following about Menderes: “With his every year in office, Menderes has become more autocratic, more sensitive to criticism. Striking out in fury at anyone questioning his policies, he has half smothered both the press and opposition political parties under a blanket of repressive legislation.” Analogous to Menderes, Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh prior to the 1953 coup, Guatemala’s President Jacobo Arbenz prior to the 1954 coup and Chile’s President Salvador Allende prior to the 1973 coup were all put on the cover of TIME, while being mentioned in news pieces as “once democrats who resorted to authoritarianism.”

The Army is responsible for upholding the constitution

While it was not on the covers, the coup of May 27 1960 found itself a place in the magazine. Using a photograph which had a group of people celebrating the coup, TIME was justifying the coup with the following passage: “The Turkish army has long scrupulously observed the admonition of the late great Kemal Ataturk that the army should stay out of partisan politics. But it also remembered that Ataturk charged it with guarding the constitution.”

Kenan Evren: Holding Turkey Together

The coup of September 12 1980 was welcomed in the US with the exclamatory expression “our boys did it.” On the covers of TIME‘s Europe, Asia and South Pacific editions of September 29 1980 issue, there was the photograph of Kenan Evren. On the eight page, in a long feature article titled “Holding Turkey Together”, the events leading to the coup and Kenan Evren himself were extracted. The coup was mentioned in the following way:

“After months of rising terrorism by both the extreme left and extreme right, the country allowed itself to settle into a state of unaccustomed relaxation. Civilians waved at tanks rumbling through the streets of Istanbul. Automobile drivers shook hands with soldiers who manned the roadblocks. Storekeepers raised their bombproof shutters for the first time in months, and restaurants began to fill up again in the evenings. Some city dwellers looked far trimmer than usual, simply because they no longer packed pistols inside their coats or waistbands.”

February 28: “Military Sacked Erbakan”

TIME had signaled the postmodern coup of February 28 1997 from the very first days of the Welfare Party. Publishing an article titled “Secular State Suspended?” when the party came into power, the magazine was almost conveying the message “how could you allow such a government” as Necmettin Erbakan’s to the Turkish army. “He [Erbakan] is a populist, pro-Islamic politician whose party did not field a single female candidate in the last elections […] Last week Erbakan became the head of the first Islamist-majority coalition government in Turkey since Kemal Ataturk declared it a secular state in 1923,” wrote TIME.

Not pondering on the decisions of February 28, TIME had praised Mesut Yılmaz who became the prime minister after Welfare Party’s coalition was deposed by the military with an article titled “Mr. Secular”: “Turkish military believes that it is better to be sad than sorry in terms of Turkey’s secular future. President Süleyman Demirel becoming the chair of NATO member countries and Mesut Yılmaz, the leader of the lesser opposition party with 129 seats in a parliament of 550, becoming the prime minister verifies the military’s approach. While some argue that Yılmaz lacks the political mediation skills to form a sustainable government, his decision to withdraw from Libya and his stance against the rise of Islamic fundamentalism dissipate the suspicions. After all, the military sacked Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan for doing the opposite of the said decisions. Moreover, NATO will also love Yılmaz for taking these decisions.”

Perspective on April 27 E-Memorandum: “AK Party is a threat to the public”

TIME‘s comment on the e-memorandum of April 27 2007 was the following: “Military has always been a strong political actor in Turkey and it has carried out four coups against those threatening the country’s secular system since 1950. In 2007, the military published a concealed threat which led to snap elections. Practices like singing hymns in schools instead of mosques and organizing Holy Quran recitation competitions on April 23 which were introduced by the AK Party government were always seen as a threat to the very existence of the republic by the military.

Expediting the crisis by writing a condemning declaration against the ruling party electing the president, the military expected the Turkish voters agree with the generals’ view that pro-Islamic AK Party is a threat to the nation. With the coup attempt that will go down in history as e-memorandum, they hoped to sway the minds of the people as they did before. They aimed to force the AK Party to form a coalition, causing them to share the power.”

On July 15: Cemal Gürsel brought democracy

The coup attempt of July 15 was also covered by TIME and articles praising the previous coups in Turkey were being published on the magazine’s website while the coup was still going on. The article written by Lily Rothman was adding insult to injury even before the people were able to thwart the coup: “In that 1960 coup, General Cemal Gursel was named President, Premier and Defense Minister, leaving the world with hopes that the nation was on its way back to true democracy. It would only be eleven years, however, before a group of military leaders handed a radio newscaster a memorandum to read out loud, telling the people of Turkey that the government had once again ‘pushed our country into anarchy, fratricide and social and economic unrest’ and thus ‘the Turkish armed forces, fulfilling their legal duty to protect the republic, will take power.'”

“The country resists an attempted coup, but the worst could be yet to come”

Even before the coup was over, the magazine was praising the perpetrators and the coup itself. When the coup was thwarted, the first issue of TIME published after the coup included a photograph of Turkish people resisting the coup accompanied by the title “Turkey’s Longest Night”. In the subtitle, however, it was noted that “The country resists an attempted coup, but the worst could be yet to come.” The magazine referred to the coup as an “amateurish attempt.”

While President Erdoğan was described as oppressive, the magazine also argued that there were people in Turkey who wanted the army, the protector of the republic, to take action. The subtitle “the worst could be yet to come” was interpreted as Turkey entering a political deadlock and hinting that increasing polarization might create an armed conflict among the people.

Yet once again, TIME had sided itself with a coup. After all, Erdoğan had made it to the cover of the magazine even two years before the December 17-25 incidents, which acted as a precursor to the coup, and was criticized for allegedly becoming an autocrat.

TIME, praising all the military coups that happened since May 14 1950, Turkey’s transition into multiparty system, seized the opportunity to celebrate the July 15 coup perpetrated by FETÖ, not breaking with its tradition. Even after the coup attempt was thwarted by the people, the magazine continued to publish many articles that implied if the coup was successful, it would be better for Turkey, consolidating its putschist position.

After the purge of such a bloody military insurgency, Turkey, as a respectable member of the international community, which had held national elections since the 19th century, expected a positive reaction from its Western partners and Western media. This was an understandable expectation since Western countries represent themselves as markers of democracy, advocates of the supremacy of the will of the people, and guardians of legitimately elected governments, which may be discharged only again by elections.However, Turkey’s Western partners failed to raise a powerful voice against the July 15 coup attempt. They failed to raise even a feeble voice. After thirty-nine days, US Vice-President Joe Biden visited Ankara; no high-level politicians from Germany, France, or the UK visited Turkey. Most of the statements after the coup attempt were of the nature of expressing regret that the coup had failed.

Specifically, during the last days of July, James Clapper, the Director of US National Intelligence, complained by saying, “Many of our interlocutors in the Turkish Army have been either purged or arrested”; in the same vein, Joseph Votel, the Commander of US Central Command, was “concerned” about, not the coup attempt, but how US operations in the region will be affected by the attempt. Such statements raise the suspicion of whether the US might have been behind the coup attempt. A few days after the coup attempt, John Kerry, US Secretary of State, made a statement to the effect that operations against FETO members should not go too far, which was sufficient to establish a background for the criticisms directed at the US. Tens of articles of the kind supporting the failed coup were published in the mainstream Western media such as the New York Times, the Guardian, Time, CNN, the Washington Post, BBC, the Times, and Der Spiegel. It is no wonder that such publications led to deep disappointment in Turkey.

Anti-Turkey Stand of the Western Media in History

As one considers the background of perception management in the Western media against Turkey, it is seen that this disappointment goes far back into the past and has been practiced for decades by contemporary media outlets. Western media, to a large extent, has positioned itself against Turkey on many issues. For instance, Kemal Karpat, in his book entitled Politicization of Islam, in a section on press, talks about how European countries used the Western press against the Ottomans, helping us understand better the current state of affairs with the following example: “The foreign powers used their ‘free’ press to excoriate and condemn Abdulhamid without causing diplomatic incidents except on rare occasions. The French used Le Figaro, while the Russians enlisted Le Nord, a Brussels newspaper, into their service and financed the famous salon of Madame Olga Novikov in London, in which Turks were described as unfit for Western civilization and as promoters of ‘Muslim fanaticism’.” The excerpt underlines the fact that, since the 19th century, Western countries have sought to keep the Ottomans under control by using the press and financing certain lobbies to demonize the Turks.

A similar assessment is made by Orhan Koloğlu, in his book entitled The History of Press. Koloğlu recounts that, during the period 1828-1829, the beginning of the Greek uprising, thousands of Muslim children, women, and elderly were massacred by the Greeks; yet, the Western press pointed at the Ottoman State as the side that committed the massacres; such a blatant and overt disinformation campaign by the Western press was astonishing to the Ottomans. In the 19th century, the same attitude was exhibited by the Western press in the cases of Serbia, Bulgaria, and Armenia.

The Western media’s anti-Turkey publications after the July 15 coup attempt, and the two examples I presented from the 19th century, demonstrate that Western media outlets target the victimized rather than the guilty. As one traces back over the vital issues Turkey has faced, it is clear that the Western media has continued incessantly with the same publication strategy, unless the West had a direct self-interest at stake.

Edward Said’s Diagnosis

The anti-Turkey campaign conducted by the European and the American mainstream media is in perfect agreement with the emphasis made by Edward Said in his book Culture and Imperialism. In his work, Said tells about “the existence of an international media that invades insidiously an incomprehensively vast land.” Because, the matter of transforming many different events in many different places around the globe into news, after filtering them through Western interests, has begun to establish another method of hegemony.

To illustrate this, for example, the operations conducted by Turkey against the terror organizations DAESH and PKK have been distorted by both the New York Times and Der Spiegel to claim that “Turkey is killing civilians, invading the region, and killing the Kurds.” As visual misinformation, pictures of people killed by the Russian bombardments in the region were used non-factually. The increasing dosage of such publications after the July 15 coup attempt is proof that the anti-Turkey campaign is being escalated deliberately. On the night of July 15, NBC announced that “Erdogan, refused landing in Istanbul, is reported to be seeking asylum in Germany,” which was certainly a lie; yet, the channel has not apologized for this misinformation. The cover of a special Der Spiegel issue on Turkey on September 11, 2016, carries both visually and content-wise stamps of orientalism. On the cover, the magazine uses such expressions as, “Ein Land verliert die Freiheit” (a country loses its freedom) and “the dictator in fight with his own cities,” and pictures the minarets of the Blue Mosque (Sultanahmet Mosque) as fired rockets. In tone with Said’s emphasis, a typical distortion and otherization has been committed by the magazine. That is, the news is veiled as it is propagated.

Journalism as Fictionalism instead of Objectivity

The above excerpts from historians Karpat and Koloğlu show that the Western media has a long and prejudiced history against Turkey, which still continues today. In this historical stretch, it appears that there have been many politically charged, manipulated, and constructed news stories published and disseminated by the Western media against Turkey. Thus, disregarding the principle of objectivity, and other principles and regulations that define the realm of professional ethics are ignored when it comes to Turkey.

No doubt, Turkey has to respond to such campaigns and these efforts must include both public diplomacy and lobbying activities. However, deep prejudice and the absence of objectivity exhibited by the Western media against Turkey are major problems mostly related to the administrators of the biased newspapers and to their cultural capitals. It is difficult to find a direct remedy for this, because the manipulation of the media is a result of conscious and deliberate choice. In spite of this, Turkey should never give up in the attempt to remind prejudiced media managers of the fundamental principles of journalism and the simple facts and rules of democracy.