In a deal worth over $1 billion, Dogan Holding announced this week it is in talks to sell its written and visual media to Demiroren Holding – a firm which already owns several pro-government titles.
Critics say the sale of Dogan’s flagship newspapers Hurriyet, Fanatik, Posta and Hurriyet Daily News, and its TV channels CNN Turk and Kanal D, spells the end of independent media in Turkey.
“Turkish mass media industry comes under the direct political control of President Erdogan,” Turkish journalist Kadri Gursel, who was recently released from prison, tweeted on Wednesday.
Christian Mihr, director of the German branch of Reporters Without Borders, called the sale “a dark day for press freedom.”
“I actually expect reporting will be much like it is at other media outlets with close ties to the Turkish government,” Mihr told DW on Thursday.
“That means it will be very uncritical when covering current events in Turkey, as well as being wholly uncritical in reports about the government and its policies. That includes stories like Turkey’s current incursion into Afrin, and the dramatic human rights situation and mass incarcerations happening at home.”
Dogan’s founder Aydin Dogan and the firm’s media portfolio are widely seen as being part of Turkey’s secular establishment, running contrary the Islamist current of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s administration.
The Turkish president has frequently accused the company of harboring an anti-AK Party bias. Dogan denies this.
In what was interpreted at the time as an attempt to silence criticism of the government, Dogan Media was fined $2.5 billion for unpaid taxes in 2009, forcing the firm to sell two of its newspapers – Milliyet and Vatan.
They were bought by Demiroren Holding and have since taken a more pro-government line.
