Even the regime media is having qualms
A warning has come from a columnist close to the ruling body about coverage being given to Erdoğan alone on TV news stations, especially the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation: Does this approach serve the pledge-persuasion process or corruption through power?
cumhuriyet.com.trYeni Şafak columnist Ali Saydam, even if he does not regard the event as being a democratic contest, opposed this on the grounds that it was wrong from a perception management point of view and would create “victimhood” for the other candidates.
The relevant section in Saydam’s article reads as follows:
Three notions that Yeni Şafak included in its headlines yesterday exemplify how fitting a choice was made over the Manifesto and Oath and of the stress laid on those very strong basic principles I have endeavoured to touch on above of the AKP: “Virtue, Will and Courage.”
And of course, talk of a speedy advance being made in Turkey continuing on the path of rearing up and becoming a global force and in the matters of freedom-justice. God willing, this will not just remain talk of his Excellency the President and a few men of state and politics in his entourage, and will spread like waves throughout the entire party organisation and take their place with the force they deserve on the plane of pledge-persuasion that constitutes the backbone of political communications.
I hope those in the AK Party ranks are aware of the need for this talk to be couched in a rhetoric that the people can easily understand.
In this context, there is a need to assess well how correct it is for, especially on TV stations, only the speeches of his Excellency the President to be broadcast and for the opposition not to be given much chance and whether this approach serves the pledge-persuasion process or corruption through power or helps the opposition by creating victimhood.