Turkish Media, Press Freedom in Turkey

Turkish Media, Press Freedom in Turkey

Salih Memecan acquired his BA and MA in architecture from Middle East Technical university (ODTu) and received his doctorate in architecture from the university of Pennsylvania as a Fulbright scholar. As a cartoonist for the Sabah daily, Memecan draws the cartoon strips Bizimcity and Sizinkiler. Bizimcity's animated version appears on ATV prime-time news programs. Memecan's cartoons are published in various magazines and newspapers abroad. He has had more than 50 books of cartoons published. As the chairman of the board of directors of the Media Association, Memecan directs the association's long-term plans and represents the association at the highest level.

Deniz Ergurel received his BA in communication from the Ege university of Turkey in 1999. He worked as an assistant program director at TV8 and as a producer in NTV between 1999 and 2001. In 2001, Ergurel moved to Mexico to work for a Turkish company as a sales manager in order to develop his professional work experience and his language skills. Between 2001 and 2008 he lived in Mexico, Brasil and USA. In 2008, Ergurel relocated to Turkey and served as an administrative director at a Turkish renewable energy company focused on solar energy. In 2010, he joined the Media Association as the founding Secretary General. His duties include the administration of the association, new project development and international relations. Mr. Ergurel speaks English, Spanish and Portuguese fluently. Since 2011 he works as a freelance journalist on new technologies and social media. His personal interests include digital journalism, photography and new media business models.

Ergun Babahan received his BA in Law from Istanbul university Law Faculty in 1981. After completing his internship in Izmir Bar association, he worked as a freelance lawyer. In 1984 he joined Yeni Asir newspaper as a political news reporter and became the assistant managing editor until 1987

In 1987, Babahan, joined Soz newspaper as the founding staff and started working there as a managing editor. Later on, he worked in Hurriyet newspaper as a news editor for a year.

In 1988, he received a scholarship from John Knight Professional Journalism Program in Stanford university. upon completing the program he started working in Sabah newspaper as an assistant managing editor. However, this only lasted a year, due to the other scholarship that Babahan received from Ford Foundation at university of Maryland at College Park and attended "A Seminar on American Foreign Policy Process"

Relocating to Turkey in 1991, he continued his work in Sabah newspaper as a managing editor and became the managing editor in chief until he joined Yeni Binyil newspaper in 2000 as the founder editor in chief.

In 2002, he became the Ankara Bureau Chief of Aksam newspaper. In August of the same year he re-joined to Sabah newspaper as editor in chief and columnist. Since 2010 he works at Star newspaper and Today's Zaman as a columnist and also as a political commentator at 24 TV.

James Kitfield is the senior national security and foreign affairs correspondent for National Journal magazine, an independent and non-partisan newsweekly on politics and government published by Atlantic Media Company. He has written on defense, national security and foreign policy issues from Washington, D.C. for over two decades.
In 2011 the Military Reporters and Editors Association and the Medill School of Journalism awarded Mr. Kitfield its top prizes for excellence in both overseas and domestic reporting (circulation below 100,000) for his first hand coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the impact of those conflicts on the home front. Of his overseas reporting, which included following medevac crews from Iraq and Afghanistan to the United States and investigating targeted killings by drones, the judges concluded that "Kitfield gives readers a clarifying understanding of the issues." In honoring his domestic coverage, the Medill judges noted that Kitfield "provided readers with penetrating analysis based on deep reporting on topics ranging from the future of defense spending, doomsday weapons and the shift in power from a Western alliance to China."

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