Note the number of outright factual mistakes, ludicrous characterizations, and significant omissions in this editorial. Fine: The NYT doesn't know much about Turkey. But why not run this past someone who does before assuming this confident tone? nyti.ms/2OmogtC
It isn't "fake news," it's "opinions written by people who lack the modesty to realize they don't know enough to make these judgments so confidently."
It's an attitude that clearly drives people nuts, to the point that when the world's most infamous liar calls the NYT "fake news," and "an enemy of the people," it resonates with the public rather than making them vomit. The NYT is an important American institution.
When it's good, it's the best newspaper in the world. But when it doesn't know what it's talking about, it shouldn't pretend that it does: That *infuriates* people who know enough instantly to recognize it as bullshit.
I invite you all to count the many ways, subtle and unsubtle, that opinion left readers badly informed, to the point they would have been much better off not reading it and *knowing* they don't understand this issue than reading it and thinking they do.
Who would know from this, for example, that Brunson is only one of a number of US nationals in Turkish custody on what may--or may not be--"trumped-up charges?" Who would know to think, "It's strange that they've made this seem like it's all about Brunson?"
Who would know that these words are both laughable and genuinely offensive? "After Mr. Erdogan took office in 2003 and began reforms, Turkey looked set to become a model Muslim democracy."
"a path similar to that taken by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk?" Seriously? "Mr. Erdogan...has been the only leader to effectively appeal to religious communities that have long felt marginalized."
Would you guess that the median age in Turkey is 30.2 years, and since the AKP took power since 2002, this means most voters can barely remember the "marginalization" of those communities? By the way, which religious communities were marginalized, in this account?
It would almost sound as if religious minorities are no longer marginalized, thanks to RTE. Then the mistake that gives away the game: "the military, which staged four coups since the 1960s to protect Turkey’s secular character."
Readers are left *seriously* misunderstanding the motivation for and nature of those coups, nor are they given any hint about why it is that Turks don't like coups. We've also got the Syrian Civil War beginning, it would seem, in 2007--
--and *causing* the "marginalization" (wrong word for "arrest and show trials") of the military. Also, it makes it sound as if the military needed to be "defied" for elections to be held, and omits an equally significant court case ...
and I'm not sure what chronology they're using when appealing to RTE's fear of "the renewal of civil war with separatist Kurds in Turkey," because between winning that election and the outbreak of the war in Syria we had a Çözüm Süreci, remember?
So it's highly unclear to me how events that were yet to take place led RTE "more aggressively protect himself and his party by marginalizing the military and secularists and expanding the role of Islam and Islamists in civic life."
"The two countries remain at odds because of Turkey’s decision to fight Kurdish forces in Syria." If that's all you tell readers about who precisely those Kurdish forces are and why Turks might find our support for them worrisome, they *could* conclude that Turks are just nuts.
A note that *we ourselves* have listed the PKK as a terrorist group might give readers a better idea why this freaked Turkey out--and in saying that this "recent [standoff] with the United States has similar roots," what on earth are they trying to say--
It follows the sentence, "expanding the role of Islam and Islamists in civic life," so a reader might well conclude that Turkish hostility to anyone waving an Öcalan flag is some kind of Islamist thing--which would be *quite* wrong.
Then we have Fethullah Gulen, who is once again living "in self-imposed exile" in Pennsylvania--what *does* that mean, editors? Why *is* he there? Don't you think readers ought to grasp that part a bit better?
And we have the Turks, "absurdly" accusing the US government of complicity in that 2016 coup attempt. Those absurd Turks, how could they imagine that? Might it be because no matter what evidence they give us, we declare it insufficient evidence to merit Mr. Gulen’s extradition?
And seem curiously ardent to protect a man who is, at the least, a shady Islamist mobster? Why wouldn't we extradite him as quickly as possible, given our now-preternatural eagerness to deport foreign nationals who commit crimes on our soil?
Might it help readers to know about the publicly-avaible evidence of Gülen's involvement in the coup attempt so they can decide for themselves whether Turks are "absurd" to suspect we might have had a role in that event? They may be wrong, but surely they are not to be ridiculed.
Because we have indeed behaved very strangely, where Gülen is concerned, and all too many of our politicians and public figures sounded genuinely excited, on Twitter, when news of the coup attempt broke, rather than remembering that coups, in Turkey, have been traumatic events.
Ah, finally they remember there are 19 other Americans detained, too. A bit of a throwaway line at the end. This should leave the careful reader thinking, "What the fuck is going on here?" And they'd be right to ask that, because no one knows.
I could continue, but basically: Don't let the interns write the editorials, @nytimes. You are and this will be read in Turkey. You and I know this is the product of slovenly research and careless writing by a highly overconfident intern. But Turks aren't going to grasp this.
They will think, "If a *highly respected* newspaper like the New York Times could publish this, what RTE's saying must be true! They're deliberately plotting against us! Because it is impossible they could be so stupid."
It won't occur to them to think, "Oh, God, I am so embarrassed to see the NYT reduced to assigning an editorial like this to an intern and not even copy-editing the thing before publishing it."
