3 thoughts on “Advocacy Journalism Has Been a Problem for Ages: Looking Back at Bosnia”
pre-Boomer Marine brat
I’m near-illiterate on Balkan history, even on Sarajevo, so thank you very much for this one. …. However, recent Turkish (cough) “events” are a different matter.
Hizmet’s “deep state” was created by a very deliberate and long-running infiltration of the police, the prosecutors and the judiciary. A Hizmet operative would get hired, then work to get others hired, who’d then get others hired (meanwhile flushing qualified candidates.) It turned out to be extremely effective. The “proof” which the Ergenekon/Balyoz prosecutors offered was seriously flawed — one such was similar to Dan Rather’s claim that a document on GW Bush’s Vietnam wartime service actually had been typed on an IBM Selectric.
Hizmet always intended to castrate and flush the Kemalist elements in the military’s leadership. It could survive only if it did so. Gülen’s move to America was nigh-forced by the military having learned of certain of his activities. Erdogan’s affections for Gülen/Hizmet were probably because of Hizmet’s plans to bring that about.
Erdogan himself might not be Islamist, but his career as a savvy street politician — “in his youth, a virile street tough in Istanbul’s Dockyards neighborhood” — has been built in part upon that brand. His political beginnings were in Necmettin Erbakan’s National Salvation Party, banned in 1980 because it was unconstitutionally Islamist. Erdogan then moved to Erbakan’s new Welfare Party (banned as Islamist in 1998), then to Erbakan’s Virtue Party (banned as Islamist in 2001.) Forming his own AKP in 2001, Erdogan had learned a lesson. Winning the PM-ship in 2003, he focused tightly upon building Turkey’s economy, trying to publicly stay on the opposite side of planet Earth from Islamic issues. The constitutionally-mandated, Mustafa-sanctified, Kemalist military had their eyes on him, but couldn’t move because their knowledge of his well-concealed collaboration with Hizmet was limited, and the military probably wasn’t aware of how high up Hizmet had infiltrated in the prosecutorial and judicial ranks.
I followed Turkish (and Kurdish) news very closely during the 2004-2019 period. It was evident then that Western journalists tend to have an ideology-rooted anti-military streak. Many took at face value that the Balyoz accusations were true, even though some were illogical on their face. Some American press captions beneath the 2016 photos from the Bosporus Bridge could likely have been emotionally mistyped as “Bunker Hill” or “Lexington/Concord”.
It’s now fairly obvious that, post-2003, Hizmet was also planning to overthrow Erdogan’s government after the Kemalists had been imprisoned. (Gülen’s version of Islam’s existence appears to be, shall we say, rather “personal”.) The 2016 coup attempt was actually desperation, because Erdogan et al had long since discovered the preliminary post-Balyoz moves which Hizmet’s deep state had begun making. (Want to know how desperate? Look at the photos of the tank and rebels on the Bosporus Bridge. It’s like they’re children who’ve just crawled out of the sandbox.)
You mention “respected outlets, notably Taraf”. Years ago I read that while Taraf was not owned by Gülenistas (as Daily Zaman and others were back in that day), its editorial and journalist staff was largely Gülenist.
35 years ago, I was working on electronic systems used in a major American state university’s School of Journalism. The work took me inside the department’s building (though NOT into its computer systems.) While in there, merely from glancing at a bulletin board as I walked past, I suddenly realized that what today is called advocacy journalism was being taught — in one case, IN A CLASS FOR THAT SPECIFIC PURPOSE, though under a different name. A long generation ago, I learned it was being taught that it was proper to deliberately slant factuality in the news in order to achieve a correct end purpose. (“The news” is what’s actually happening out there, as distinct from op-ed writing, and from larger-picture “analysis” which can be some of both.)
(Nov. 18th, rather late) this quote from H.L. Mencken came to mind. It’s about politics, but also applies to advocacy journalism. Both are rooted in ability to control the masses. … “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
I thought of it this AM, while on a South Asian newspaper website which I’ve followed for 25 years. The paper’s become a fervid oracle of the dangers of global warming/climate change. But these days, it’s also moving into front-page exposure of (post-COVID) medi-psycho-enviro dangers of all sorts. The latest is a potential vaccine condition which was already known back in the Fifties when I was a kid. Today’s anointed advocates have (GASP!) “discovered it” and are rushing to frighten hell out of the planet by alleging it’s an everyday occurrence.
A quote from (oddly enough) journalist H. L. Mencken about politics, also applies to advocacy journalism.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
And how does “advocacy” apply to what social media’s turned into?
Kyle Orton's Blog 
I’m near-illiterate on Balkan history, even on Sarajevo, so thank you very much for this one. …. However, recent Turkish (cough) “events” are a different matter.
Erdogan himself might not be Islamist, but his career as a savvy street politician — “in his youth, a virile street tough in Istanbul’s Dockyards neighborhood” — has been built in part upon that brand. His political beginnings were in Necmettin Erbakan’s National Salvation Party, banned in 1980 because it was unconstitutionally Islamist. Erdogan then moved to Erbakan’s new Welfare Party (banned as Islamist in 1998), then to Erbakan’s Virtue Party (banned as Islamist in 2001.) Forming his own AKP in 2001, Erdogan had learned a lesson. Winning the PM-ship in 2003, he focused tightly upon building Turkey’s economy, trying to publicly stay on the opposite side of planet Earth from Islamic issues. The constitutionally-mandated, Mustafa-sanctified, Kemalist military had their eyes on him, but couldn’t move because their knowledge of his well-concealed collaboration with Hizmet was limited, and the military probably wasn’t aware of how high up Hizmet had infiltrated in the prosecutorial and judicial ranks.
I followed Turkish (and Kurdish) news very closely during the 2004-2019 period. It was evident then that Western journalists tend to have an ideology-rooted anti-military streak. Many took at face value that the Balyoz accusations were true, even though some were illogical on their face. Some American press captions beneath the 2016 photos from the Bosporus Bridge could likely have been emotionally mistyped as “Bunker Hill” or “Lexington/Concord”.
35 years ago, I was working on electronic systems used in a major American state university’s School of Journalism. The work took me inside the department’s building (though NOT into its computer systems.) While in there, merely from glancing at a bulletin board as I walked past, I suddenly realized that what today is called advocacy journalism was being taught — in one case, IN A CLASS FOR THAT SPECIFIC PURPOSE, though under a different name. A long generation ago, I learned it was being taught that it was proper to deliberately slant factuality in the news in order to achieve a correct end purpose. (“The news” is what’s actually happening out there, as distinct from op-ed writing, and from larger-picture “analysis” which can be some of both.)
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(Nov. 18th, rather late) this quote from H.L. Mencken came to mind. It’s about politics, but also applies to advocacy journalism. Both are rooted in ability to control the masses. … “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
I thought of it this AM, while on a South Asian newspaper website which I’ve followed for 25 years. The paper’s become a fervid oracle of the dangers of global warming/climate change. But these days, it’s also moving into front-page exposure of (post-COVID) medi-psycho-enviro dangers of all sorts. The latest is a potential vaccine condition which was already known back in the Fifties when I was a kid. Today’s anointed advocates have (GASP!) “discovered it” and are rushing to frighten hell out of the planet by alleging it’s an everyday occurrence.
LikeLike
A quote from (oddly enough) journalist H. L. Mencken about politics, also applies to advocacy journalism.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
And how does “advocacy” apply to what social media’s turned into?
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