Banu Güven: Fighter against the regime Erdogan
© Agata SkovronekShe saw it coming. In protest of the self-censorship of the Turkish media, Banu Güven, 44, quit her job as a star presenter at the leading news channel in the country two years ago, earning a head-shaking incomprehension. Since then, it has been warning of the growing interconnectedness of the media, banks, corporations, and politics that are ditching the truth of the truth. "The media has become more and more the voice of Erdogan," she says. But her voice went unheard for a long time.
That changed abruptly when protests against the government broke out in late May and the Turkish media kept silent about it. Like dandruff, it was the eyes of the Turks who demonstrated on Taksim Square in Istanbul and hardly mentioned a word of it in the papers. The news channels that reported instead of the protests on penguins in the Antarctic, now no one believes; their OB vans were attacked by demonstrators when they finally showed up. On at least one wreck sprayed the protesters the name "Banu Güven".
The Turks now receive their news from Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. The Twitter feed from Banu Güven has subscribed to half a million people. Banu Güven is one of the most popular journalists in Turkey. After studying International Relations, she worked for the UN Refugee Agency in Ankara, then reported as a reporter for the newspaper "Milliyet" from Israel, Palestine, Syria and Egypt. In 1997 she went to the then new news channel NTV. At prime time, she interviewed the most powerful politicians in the country and the world with stubborn severity. She did not nod in agreement during the conversation and kept asking if the interviewee wanted to dodge. The sudden end of this career came just before the parliamentary elections in the summer of 2011.
Banu Güven had invited Leyla Zana: a Kurd politician who had been arrested from parliament in the 1990s, had spent ten years behind bars and was running for office again. A very interesting interviewee - and dangerous rival for the governing AKP party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The interview was undesirable, let the sender know his presenter. Banu Güven drew the consequences and left. In the meantime, the journalist can now be seen again at an alternative station, which has only been available for a few weeks. "It will not be easy for established media to regain the trust of viewers," she says. "Even if they apologize."
