مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - The Relationship between the Press and the Government during the Foundation Years of the Republic (1920-1925)

Abstract :

An individual’s freedom of receiving and disseminating information has always been a subject of debate. The press, as a shaping and consciousness-raising power in enlightening public opinion, has undertaken important missions in the foundation phase of the Turkish Republic. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who knew that the best way to convey information and facts to the people is the press, established good relations with both foreign and national press from the first day he arrived in Anatolia in May 1919 and at times shared his views on the condition of the country with journalists. He wanted to benefit from the press and media with the aim of supporting the national independence war, giving the Anatolian people true and regular information about the national war, and enabling the Turkish people to prosper and reach the level of contemporary civilization while a new Turkish identity was being formed during the course of the establishment of the Turkish Republic. In this period, during which the newly founded state was reshaped with its political institutions, hard polemics occurred between the pro-government press and the opposition press on the actions of the government. The press close to the current political establishment wanted people to give more support to the government whereas the opposition press criticized the government harshly for its actions. In response to the heavy criticism of the opposition press, the government took hard measures to suppress the press and keep it under strict control. This paper aims to explore the repercussions of the problems between the press and the government in the independence tribunals and the current government’s attitudes toward the newspapers and journalists in this period.