- 1. Our first question would be about the award you received back in February. You were given “the best prime time news broadcast program” award by the news media foundation. This award is considered to be Oscars of Media. Do you choose the news items for the prime time news broadcast? If you do so, what is your criteria?
You have seen our news headquarter. We are a big team. Yılmaz Özdil is also in the team. In our team we have got; The General Coordinator, Director of Intelligence, News director, international news chief and, national news chief. We have expert news correspondents, correspondents and practitioner correspondents. İstanbul and Ankara, all together we are 70 people. For the cities where we do not have an office or for the ones we could not travel to, we have got the support of Doğan News Agency. This Agency’s representatives work across the country. Doğan News Agency feeds all media institutions such as TV channels CNN Turk, Star TV and Channel D, or newspapers like Hürriyet, and all the other newspapers and periodicals which are published under the umbrella of the Agency. We are responsible for the TV news. The written news and the photography interest the newspapers. While evaluating the news items we do give priority to the public interest. When we broadcast this news item, will public benefit from it? When they learn about it, how will they make use of the news? If our responses to these questions are on the positive side then we include it to the news broadcast. Sometimes, though, we include news items like as the Westerns call it “talk of the town”. For example, assassination attempt to İbrahim Tatlıses, İbrahim Tatlıses is badly injured, and his assistant is also injured. The main agenda of the day would be that. Besides these, events which involve the whole world, or a threat to the whole world and important developments would be on our agenda. Such as the earthquake in Japan, or the Tsunami disaster, and following that the Fkushima nuclear plant leak. The threat the world would face because of the leak, the precautions that need to be taken. Or mirroring what has happened in Japan, should be reconsider the Mersin Akkuyu nuclear plant project.? Should we give it a second thought? Or should we think about it at all? Our approach is as such. Naturally, the whole news coverage would not end with stressful, pessimistic or a terrible outlook to life, that is we bid goodbye to our audience we always hope to make them smile a bit. We aim to make all the pessimism and stress to fade away. Actually, this has become a motto of our mission. Apparently, this is true across the world. However, this does not mean that we end the program with pure gossip or tabloid news. If these type of news need to be broadcasted out of pure necessity, we attach utmost importance to people’s rights, and this is our priority. Additionally, what we do is to encourage animal love among children, and try tom spread the love across the country, therefore we try to finish the broadcast with a lovely animal story. For example, today we do have a story about a panda and her baby. Tonight we will bid goodbye with this news and its footage. I smile as well and the audience alike, especially the children. This is our philosophy of news broadcasting and we abide by this philosophy while organizing the bulletin.
2. The public learns a lot of things through your investigating reporting technique on television. Do you think a journalist has to reveal a hidden source? Dont you get scared from the threats?
Having secret sources obviously makes difficulties because there are some forces that don’t want public to hear some those things. Sometimes these can be political people and sometimes they can be people who are rich. These forces doesn’t want public to hear things. But Lord Northcliffe who is concidered as the inventer of our job, said “Somewhere forces are trying to cover up some news and all the other things that they don’t want to cover up are commercials!” There is obviously a dangerous side to it, for example, one of the most dangerous forces in Turkey was Susurluk,and they wrote my name to their death list. I am alive now because of coincidenses. But I still tried to my best to have this force get caught and get their punishment. These don’t let us down because we are just journalists. Our only motivation is our the principles of our job and the public’s right to know. We all know that the truth will reach its place even if its hard for it to do so. We are innkeepers and people who are trying to make us go down have been always the ones that leave at the end. Until now, all of the political parties which ruled Turkey, dealt with me. Because I show what people must know.
3.a. Do you consider “Wikileaks” as a way of journalism?
Of course it is very striking news. Today there are new social networks, new sources of information. I belong to very first television generation of Turkey. TV broadcasting profesionally started in 1970 in Turkey and I was working with this team. At the time there were no computers, no RTR video gadgets; only our typewriters and video recorders. Believe me they were as big as the half of a table and casettes were as thick as my hand. We were working hard to cut them and then to attach them with bands; we were all going through an arduous process to prepare our news program. It is very much different today; neither you nor media workers know how much effort was once necessary to get hold of the facts or how much old one should be to be known as wise andwell informed because today you can search in your internet and react to every information you need in a very short period of time. But here is the danger! You can easily access to all information including the misleading ones. These bombardment of information weakens one’s judgement and evaluation skills. In journalism there is the systhem of “check / double-check” to verify and verify again the news but todays easy access to news jeopardise this systhem. Coming back to Wikileaks; it is in fact a bombardement of information constituted of the documentation of communication between US consulates or other foreign representative offices and the Head Office, Washington or Pentagon. It is a giant pile of information. To publish some of these documentation can be considered, at first sight, as journalism because there are documents involved. But when one thinks; with the publishment of these documents economical and social statutes of the people involved may be endangered, their individual rights may be threatened then one should be after verifying the claims in Wikileaks documents. At least he should contact the people involved and ask them concrete questions refering to claims and afterwards he should also convey their replies to readers, without distorting or changing. The way of journalism that Julian Assange is practising is stil a matter of debate among journalists: Is this journalism or not? If you ask the truth, this question is not being clearly answered yet. On the other hand we can not deny it helped us to learn more about what is going on in the world but most particularly in thesuper power and it will guide us to a more transparent world. I think people will be forced to be more virtuous and honest knowing that truth can not be hidden for long. At least it will have such a contribution…
3.b What about sudden attacks? Aren’t they the same in the way to endanger one’s individual rights?
No, they are not the same. Only yesterday we had two events that proved that our way of investigative journalism was correct and permanent: One was that the person who shot Ibrahim Tatlises was in Arena archives; he was delivering a speech in 1998 almost pointing to what happened now. We have ,at that date, brought to light a possible attack to Ibrahim Tatlises thanks to our investigative journalism. And we have warned both Ibrahim Tatlises and authorized people. And we even have gone a step further and even if it is not our duty as a journalist, as a responsible human being, we have tried to mediate between them to prevent blood shed. There are certain power centers that play with your economical life, your health or your social habitat. Such interventions are never public of course, always behind closed doors, always in dark places. I am speaking of the dark atmosphere formed by dark people. These people who planned all such set-ups, like people who rob state treasury by fake invoices or…who siphon national’s wealth by fictituos exports or who conspired to defraud banks and cause major economical losses can only be caught by certain universal methods that are globally used. In England, the cradle of democracy, “Panaroma” uses hidden camera. In USA, state governed by the rule of law, where civil rights are strongly under legal protection, “60 Minutes” or other TV shows with investigative journalism use hidden camera for public purpose. We, with Arena’s hidden camera, we have revealed, for the first time Orhan Asliturk, as the king of fake invoices, was robbing the state for billions and billions TL. We could do it with a raid; they almost had a fake invoice factory! They were loading computers into trucks in the evenings and were driving to a totally different place to continue, then they change building and work there for 2 days. Hence they were always mobile, never staying long in a certain address. We have contacted by one of their people, who was involved in this dirty business but who was worried of being caught and offered us to display all this operation in details. We believed in him, at the end we would be taping the exact operation, documenting the truth. And you can not prepare a TV news program without pictures and deeds. Here only one condition, one principle is important: will there be a social benefit or not at the end? Or is this a candid camera towards private lives that should not concern others? We can never describe invasion of privacy as journalism and better not investigative journalism. We did a very good job by recording Orhan Asliturk running this fake invoice factory. Later we openly went with our camera to interview and we were kicked out, our friends were beaten, they tried to scare us but at the end we revealed the truth.
4. You have attended BBC’s ‘’Television Production and Management’’ courses and then you have started working in Turkey in this area. That is why you know how television production and management works abroad and locally. What is the biggest difference between Turkey and abroad in this area?
Ofcourse, there are many differences; for example, an English journalist doesn’t feel the fear or anxiety such as going into prison or being killed by someone or being ambushed by someone just like we do in Turkey. They are under the assurance of the constitutional state, using the authority which is given by the freedom of press. However, in our country it is not clear, if we have freedom of press or not. Fear is dominant in the atmosphere. Even ordinary people are afraid of talking on the phone. Being a journalist has become one of the most difficult and dangerous occupations in a country like this. I know how journalists work in England due to the fact that I have learned the principles of my job in BBC, and English journalists never travel with the guards which are assigned by the government for them or none of the English journalists carry a gun with them. These are actually things that should be ashamed of in a real democratic constitutional state. However, unfortunately we do see things like that in our country. I never forget, one of the most important investigative journalists in Turkey, Uğur Mumcu, God rest his soul, was a very good friend of mine. One day his plane was delayed and we were sitting together in a café, suddenly he took out his gun and told me that he bought a new gun. Those days I didn’t own any guns, I am not carrying any at the moment as well. Anyways, he started to show me his gun and at the same time he was telling me the qualities of the gun and how many shots on target he has made. However, while telling these to me, he was being embarrassed and uncomfortable but he was talking with the confidence of a person who deeply believed that gun was one of the most important instruments of a journalist just like a pen. But, we all saw, in the end they put a bomb under his car and killed Uğur Mumcu, one of the most important investigative journalists in Turkey. Çetin Emeç was a very good friend of mine too and together we have published very big news. We were the headline of Hürriyet every week. For example, there was a time when no gold was imported in Turkey but bullions of gold were sold in the Grand Bazaar. How is it possible to sell bullions of gold although no gold is imported into that country? Although everybody knew that the gold was brought by smuggling and because nobody was interfering, it never became legal and nobody could answer this question. Finally, I started to search for an answer and I documented how the money earned by drug dealing in Turkey was transferred into gold in Sweden, how gold was brought to Bulgaria by plane and then was carried into Turkey in the hidden places of autobuses and how it was sold in Grand Bazaar after smelting and making jewelries out of them. I documented each one of them and then importing gold became legal in Turkey by Özal. We have done so many things, there was no Green prescription, Red prescription execution in Turkey and today all the drugs that are under this execution are being sold with exaggerated packages and writings on them. For example, on an anesthetic, I don’t want to give any names, it was saying “consolidated” on it. It was being sold as if they were telling us to not search for another anesthetic, buy it and get high with it in pharmacy, which is an institution that is responsible of protecting our health. I discovered this fact, showed how young people’s lives were harmed with clear examples and therefore Green and Red prescription execution started in Turkey. There wasn’t something called Emergency Room 112, there was no ambulance service in Turkey. People going to the emergency couldn’t even find a stretcher in the important hospitals in İstanbul. I uncovered this truth by recording the hospital with hidden cameras and after that 112 Emergency Service strarted. For me it is very beneficial and it is working very well. Just like this, I can say that lots of things that Turkey has but didn’t have in the past were brought into action after our news. This book is full of these important news. I recommend it, I believe it is a perfect life guide for young people.
5. Turkey is discussing İklim Bayraktar’s journalism. On the one side there are claims about abuse, on the other side there is blackmail. You are a very experienced journalist. What do you think a journalist’s standards should be and did you ever breake these standards?
The thing that İklim Bayraktar does has nothing to do with journalism. First of all claiming about abuse… Okay, every women can be abused by someone but that woman won’t go and tell this to the new leader of a political party the abuser is in competition with. She won’t tell this even to the people of that political party. She would only tell this to a public prosecutor. She would go and tell why, where and how this abuse happened with some evidence, only to the prosecutor. A woman who got abused should show a reaction to what happened. She should scream it out saying “Look at what has been done to me in this room”. None of this happenes and then they’re saying some recordings were made. I think recordings are also a very bad thing because there is nothing that people learn from these recordings, it doesn’t have anything to do with people. You can see that there is a political issue going on there. Recording this political issue is a totally low act. Therefore, İklim Bayraktar, saying to some people “You bring me the camera I’ll show you the big fish” has nothing to do with the standards of journalism. İklim Bayraktar is a person that didn’t do journalism; if anything, she went out of those standards. A journalist writes about what they hear, they don’t hide from people. If they’re hiding something very critical, it would be a very dangerous thing later in their life. What you learn should be shared with people because people have the right to learn the truth. If we are journalists, we should share what we’ve learnt without changing it.
6. According to the RSF’s (Reporteurs Sans Frontiers / Reporters Without Borders) 2010 Report on ‘’Freedom of Media on the World’’, Turkey was rated 148 out of 178 countries. Canada, Sweden, Australia are at the top of the list. Countries like China are at the bottom. Do you agree with this ranking?
Unfortunately, the freedom of press issue in Turkey is getting even worse than the countries that are considered as developing countries and it has started to look like the underdeveloped countries or countries that are governed by non-democratic regimes. Lastly journalists, maybe you might saw him with me in my TV show Arena, a very valuable investigative journalist and the author of İşte Kitabım Nedim Şener, I laugh this a lot, was put in prison because of an alleged book that he wrote, are going into prison and the arrestment styles and reasons of Nedim Şener and Ahmet Şık were criticized very toughly in the Turkey report of the European Parliament. This is proving how freedom of press in Turkey is getting worse day by day.
7 a) The recently appointed U.S. Ambassadorto Turkey, Richard Ricciardone, said last week (Feb. 15) that he ‘’did not understand how Turkish journalists could be detained while at the same time addresses about freedom of speech are given.’’ On the one hand we know of Mustafa Balbay, Soner Yalçın and 49 other journalists being detained. On the other hand, we have the Turkish Ministry of Internal Affairs saying in his Washington visit that ‘’Turkey is more advanced in freedom of press issues than U.S.’’ Both the opposition parties and the government say they support freedom of the press, but raids to journalists houses continue. Could you please explain to me how you see this dichotomy?
I believe that United States ambassador makes sincere comments. It is not easy for Americans to understand Turkey’s freedom press. Beşir Atalay, shows an interesting attitude and he make an irony. Today, everyone knows the amount of journalists who are arrested. Than, Beşir Atalay, changed his words and he said we are better than United States in press freedom. Our prime minister said that journalists are not arrested because of their journalism. According to our prime minister they are arrested because of the criminal issues. There is something called Ergenekon terror organization. They said that Hanefi Avcı is imprisoned because of the things that he published in his book. However, Hanefi Avcı explains the terror torture in his book. I cannot understand how Hanefi Avcı can be a part of terror organization. I evaluate the comment positively that the American ambassador made for the Turkish press.
7.b. Yesterday (March 16, 2011), Turkish President Abdullah Gül has received the television broadcasters at Çankaya and has explained the ‘’power of media’’. Later, he asked about the ‘’effects of the Turkish serials abroad’’. The broadcasters asked for ‘’natural film sets’’ and ‘’supervision of the internet media’’. However, there were lots of other important subjects such as Turkey going for the construction of nuclear energy bases while Germany and Sweden have put on hold their nuclear bases due to the cooling disaster in Japan, or the arrests of many journalist. Why are these subjects not talked about?
You already gave the answer in the question by saying “ Less important events are being talked while there are other much more important events to argue, isn’t that absurd)” Yes I agree, it is absurd.
But why these events are not talked?
Well then they are not wanted to be talked.
8. European Federation of Journalism and Turkish Journalism Union wrote a letter concerning more than 700 journalists who are awaiting trial because they were accused of overriding the Criminal Law. Anne König says “These journalists are merely doing their job professionally and with dignity. These journalists normally should not be jailed.” In response to what she has said, government spokespeople announced that the Criminal Law will soon be amended and this “confidentiality” issue will be resolved, resulting that the journalists will not be accused of such crimes. If a journalist has a document which is confidential, what should they do? What will happen to “off the record” information?
Journalists will not deal with any document that is “off the record” then. Because in the long run such documents could be considered as illegal. To exemplify this ;, Nedim Şener and myself , for 42 years for me and for 20 years for him cause he is a young journalist, have fought against anything that makes life difficult, that hinders the development of our country by embodying illegal act, namely the mafia, the gangs and criminal groups. When you look at the books Nedim has written you will find one about Alaaddin Çakıcı, one of the fathers of mafia. While discussing Ergenekon case for example, Nedim and I chatted about it and also have been concerned that behind the case there is a criminal group. Then we questions, who the group is, is there a connection between the Susurluk case and this one. Among these people, there might be ones who sneaked into the government and made use of the information that they had gathered, and killed some people, and indirectly tried to form a revolution to overthrow the government. Such people need to be identified and should be punished. This is Nedim’s and my wish. We always talk about these matters. If there is a criminal group like this, I use the word “if” because I do not want to judge people like the court of law. There is the court who decides whether they exist or not. Court decision is not enough in such matters, the Supreme Court of Appeal’s decision is more crucial. Because until the Court of Appeal’s jurisdiction everybody is innocent. Or else, till Law says so nobody can be called guilty.
We need to be very sensible about this concept, and should approach the matter with diligence. However, the situation has come to such a point that, if you do not like someone, or if the leading party thinks the person is on the opposition side then they create evidence and consider you under the umbrella of Ergenekon. Or they humiliate you and your name via the Internet or via other means that you find yourself losing your respect. This is another way of execution without trial. Therefore, we are against the system where the innocent are treated as guilty. We believe what will happen is public will lose their trust on our legal system. Who is guilty and who is not should be identified by the legal system and the cases should be finalized very fast. Late verdict is not legal. The cases conserved should be finalized as soon as possible. When trust to the legal system is gone, then it is very difficult to sustain order in public. If people think that the legal system has collapsed or believe that justice behave towards injustice, and then it is very difficult to have public order. In this respect, the threat is big and this threat should be removed by the legal authorities. Won’t there be problems among the free press? There may be some, the concept of free press could be exaggerated and then could some crimes be committed? Yes. However, to solve these type of issues can only be possible again through free press again. In order to avoid problems, it will create more problems to restrict the freedom of the press. Problems caused by free press can only be resolved through free press. The local courts are responsible to solve such crimes. Let’s say, during a broadcast someone’s rights are endangered through fake news, this instance is solved via the criminal courts of first instance. You apply to the prosecutor with your crime report and according to the prosecutor’s decision then he can start the criminal procedure that’s at the end of the procedure one can be sentenced to prison. Or you can claim atonement by applying to criminal courts of first instance.
9. You have opened a new era in investigative journalism on television in Turkey. (We have also heard that your father was with the British Scotland Yard.) Do you share investigations with the police or the MIT (the Turkish Secret Services) ? How do you get the first hand information, for example, how do you know a restaurant is dirty before you raid it?
My father didn’t work at Scotlandyard, detectives from Scotlandyard came to Turkey and gave classes to the Turkish police force. My father attended these classes and we published the certificate he received to my book Işte Hayatım, if you’re interested you can find it there. A journalist and the police never cooperate, but the journalist may get news form the police. It is possible to get news from the police, yet the information received from the police, especially information that comes from intelligence organizations has to be confirmed and verified. If you take the information and directly use it, as in some cases nowadays, you may end up ruining the lives of people with unreal, manipulated information. If a journalist has a glass of water, and the glass is filled with water, his/her duty isn’t to say “oh this glass is full of water anyhow” and turn away, instead it’s to turn the glass upside down, see weather or not it’s an illusion, find out if there really is water in it. In my opinion, a journalist who does not do so is a journalist who doesn’t know the principles of his/her profession and neglects the principles. Sometimes a document that seems real can be completely false, misleading, and full of phony information that serves certain interests and aims to scratch out certain groups of people. This is very dangerous and you’re fully aware that nowadays many people claim that these sorts of documents are everywhere. Let me give you an example, Mesut Yılmaz’s brother’s project, the so called “Beyaz Enerji” (White Energy) project, I won’t give you any more details concerning it, many years ago was looked into while under an investigation of corruption and because in the local police’s report his brother’s name was mentioned, alongside other 30 names, they were all … When I found this police report and wanted to publish it, I was asked to take Turgut Yılmaz’s name out, but I didn’t do it. Since his name was in there, along with 30 other people, it wasn’t ethical to do so, the result of such an action would have been nothing but harming the others. I told them I would never make any effort to protect Turgut Yılmaz and that my journalism ethics won’t permit it. Because I published the document with his name in it, Yılmaz while he was the prime minister punished me severely by using the power he had inside the government. The only thing I didn’t go through was imprisonment; otherwise every kind of dirt was thrown at me. Internal affairs gave declarations, RTÜK was involved, I went to court, I was sued tens of times. In the beginning my only worry was that Turgut Yılmaz’s name might have been inserted to the document afterwards. This was my biggest fear; I couldn’t sleep for two days. Then we understood that the local police had the original document and that it was identical to the one we had. That’s when I took a sigh of relief because as I already mentioned, the truth, don’t be afraid, even if limping always reaches its destination. But they interfered with my work for 1,5 year. They scared off all the media bosses, they threatened and I was unable to work. They fell from power, a fictitious export file about Tugut Yılmaz came to me. A perfect document written by certain units of the government, all I had to do was to sit and write about it. Do you know what I did? When the rights of those who were our enemies come across us, we have to be much more sensitive and fair. I sent a team to Germany, the team detected that the companies, which were said to be exporting didn’t exist, the team documented. We have come to point where we just sit down and write the news. Promotions started, I couldn’t sleep at night, I said what if they companies exist but moved somewhere else and our friends didn’t notice them, this question was stuck in my head. In the morning I jumped on a plane, I went personally. The truth was that during the exports these companies existed but because of the Russian crisis some were shut down, some moved elsewhere, so I went to where they moved to, documented and learned. So I came, gathered my friends, colleagues I said, some one thought we would dive right in when we heard Turgut Yılmaz’s name, we don’t know what kind of deal they have with those who brought us this false document, or them too, just as you went to Germany, made the same mistake while researching and prepared the document believing they had made a healthy research. But these are false and look, I said, look at what I’m about to do, I took the document and tore it into pieces, threw it into the trash. A journalist should be fair; a journalist should be honest even towards those who in the past treated him/her poorly. They couldn’t have done anything to me; if they sued me they wouldn’t have won because I had official documents prepared by the government itself. Do you kids see the responsibility? 
10. What was the most surprising, shocking news that you have presented?
I live in Turkey therefore nothing can shock me! In fact nothing human surprises me anymore.
11. Our school newspaper ‘‘The Right Angle’’ is coming only as an on-line newspaper. What do you think about on-line newspapers? Should newspapers be bought and read as hard copies or do you think on-line is more effective?
Today, you can clearly see the difference between reading the newspaper online and in your hand. Generally, when you read the news from your computer you cannot remember it exactly. It doesn’t become permanent. However, you have an opportunity to read your news from the newspaper whenever you want. When you have free time you can read the newspaper by underlining the significant things. This privilege makes you to understand the news and keep in your mind. When you see the news on the paper it becomes more reliable. Nowadays, people face with the economic and social problems a lot. That’s why everyone chooses to learn the news from internet. Because of this we can say that internet journalism threatens the written journalism. However, we can not attain the accurate judicial right know. There are some predictions but they are not so strong. Usually, the ones who cannot gain enough money open these kinds of internet sites. I want to indicate that they try to survive from this economic disaster. If the newspaper cannot gain its economic independence this problem will directly affect their news. Today, I buy my clothes from my own income.
If I put a name tag on my breast, I would be selling my freedom for a 2 meter piece of cloth. A journalist must be strong. Otherwise, everyone will make scandal from your name. A journalist must be strong.
12. Lately, you had Yılmaz Özdil, Müjdat Gezen and Levent Kırca as guests at the Arena program. Do you consider inviting them over again? Or do you have other guests in mind?
Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) does not want that. The Council does not want the same guests to be invited because of the quotation Müjdat Gezen used from Aziz Nesin. The Prime Minister got very angry over it and sued him and in Müjdat Gezen sued him as well. The Council punished Müjdat Gezen as if this quotation had been uttered for the first time, as if this was his idea and reprimanded him. Now we are trying to go for appeal and get this case withdrawn. As I emphasized before, Müjdat Gezen quoted Aziz Nesin there and furthermore this quotation was not an idea that Müjdat Gezen believed in fully. In fact, he would not have said something of that nature. Aziz Nesin is a great writer full of ironies and he pushes the limits. He was a writer who would directly say what he believes for the cost of being in conflict with the society at large. That was Aziz Nesin’s idea, and he is a writer and said it as a sensible writer. One would say, this is Aziz Nesin’s idea, and this is it. Accusing someone for quoting this idea is against freedom of press and democracy, and freedom of thought.
13. You were invited to be ‘The guest of honour’ at the 1997 Berlin Television Festival ; you were voted for the ‘Finalist Award’ at the New York Festival with your research of the organ mafia ; you won the ‘Success Award’ from ICIJ in Washington. What does it take to get a Pulitzer? Is it ‘being in the right place at the right time’ or ‘working towards it’ ?
I believe that the most important thing is to like your job. You need to save your energy because energy is 80% of success. Our job, exploit our cultural background. A journalist always needs to refresh its cultural background. Also, you need to learn and follow the news everyday. A journalist cannot have an off day. If a journalist has an off day, he needs to be responsible for the things that he misses during that off day. You should need to observe and learn everything. Every journalist dreams to get a Pulitzer Prize. Thanks my god because I bring the most important awards to Turkey. We won this prize for broadcasting the organ mafia news. All the worlds’ investigator journalists congratulate us and they want to take and share this important news. We did a very successful job by finding and deciphering the organ mafia. However, we still face with the problems that the organ mafia causes. I believe that organ mafia is a still big problem for Turkey. Only, Doctor Yusuf Elçin Sönmez, who is the leader of this gang punished. We won the international award for this investment. Engin Civan, thanked me when I found bribe prohibition. I am very happy, to earn money for Turkey. Awards are wonderful but we are not working to get an award. We won a lot awards in the area of reporting. These awards show us that we are very successful and we can reach our goals.
14. You appear to be very serious and bossy. How are you relations with your wife and children? Is your commitment to your work preventing you to spend time with your family?
I can appear authoritarian to people that don’t know me but actualy I am easygoing and playful. As well at home I am very friendly with children, I am not a bossy father. I am democrat enough to allow my children to decide on their own for their path that they will take in their lives. I will only intervene if they will face obstacles in the paths they have chosen as per their abilities and perspectives, to help them to eliminate these obtacles, if I can.
