Turkey: Code of Ethics

The Code of Professional Ethics of the Press was published in 1989 by the Press Council. It considers the “Freedom of Communication in the country as the basic precondition of achieving human dignity, open government and democracy”. It lists a series of fundamental ethical principles to follow while practicing the journalistic profession ranging from principles of non discrimination based on sex, race, age, health conditions, social status and religious belief to provisions related to the protection of sources and the right to reply and correction.

The Declaration of Rights and Responsibilities of Turkish Journalists was issued by the Journalists Association of Turkey in 1988. The Declaration gives a precise definition of who is a journalist:
“Any individual whose job is to gather, process, communicate news or to express opinion, ideas and views regularly at a daily or periodical print, video, audio, electronic or digital medium employed on a fulltime, contractual or copyright basis and whose main employment and means of livelihood consists of this job, and who is defined as such by the legislation that covers the functioning of the organization at which he or she is employed, is a journalist”.
Then the Declaration defines rights and duties of journalists.

The Ethics Code for Journalists (pdf here) was adopted in 2011 by the Media Association. The guidelines include honesty, fairness and courage that are deemed as “vital in collecting, reporting and interpreting information”.

In addition to these codes of ethics, some media and media group have issued their own codes of ethics regulating the status of journalists working for them.