Presidency’s Director of Communications Fahrettin Altun issued the following statement in response to the politically-charged job advert posted by the British news agency Reuters for their Türkiye office: "This is not journalism."
Emphasising how Reuters seemed to be shifting away from the facts, Director of Communications Altun noted:
"Reuters seems to shift away from the facts and instead employ a biased perspective about what has happened to ‘modern secular traditions’ in Türkiye during President Erdoğan's rule. These statements would only make sense on a propaganda leaflet. This is not journalism.
A media outlet should ask their journalists on the ground about the facts before deciding what has happened and using it as a guideline for news. Better for Reuters to juxtapose these sentences with their commitment to the principles of journalism: “independence, integrity, and freedom from bias."