Nevtron portable radio left over in Trabzon from the pre-Doomsday era. Possession and import of radio receivers is highly restricted.
Mass media in Trabzon consists of a state-owned radio broadcasting system and a mixture of state-owned and private press operations. Because all radio and the major print sources of news and information are owned by the state, critics of the country's military regime regard them as major sources of domestic propaganda.
Following the general trend established in Turkey prior to Doomsday, there is no guaranteed freedom of information in Trabzon, although the tradition of a private press to circulate free of government ownership is generally respected. In the 1990s, the Trabzon Bureau of Press Directorate was established by the armed forces to oversee broadcasting and the press, and ensure they served "national goals". The Directorate investigates and screens the journalistic practices, ethical standards, and professional conduct of the nation's press and broadcasting staff.
The country's military leadership has long been apprehensive that the ideological content of foreign - particularly Turkish-speaking - programs would undermine the legitimacy of its regime. Trabzon requires the purchase of an expensive and extensively vetted license to own a radio receiver, and is one of the only countries in the post-Doomsday era to prohibit television altogether.
Radio[]
Prior to Doomsday, radio broadcasting was monopolized by the government-owned Türkiye Radyo ve Televizyon Kurumu (Turkish Radio and Television Corporation; TRT). The TRT initially operated two main radio stations in Ankara and Istanbul, respectively, but their reception in eastern Turkey was poor for several decades due to the insufficient power of the main transmitters and a lack of repeaters. In the 1960s, the TRT largely resolved this issue with the construction of low power medium wave radio stations in provincial capitals across eastern Turkey, including Trabzon. These were powered by relatively simple 2kW transmitters.
The TRT's provincial radio station in Trabzon was converted to a high power station with the addition of new transmitters during the 1970s; it was thereafter known as Trabzon Radyosu. After Doomsday, the station was seized by army mutineers led by Brigadier General Altan Sahin, who would become the de facto military leader of the region for the next four decades.
Today, Trabzon Radyosu serves as the national radio program and is broadcast from a very high frequency (VHF) transmitter in Trabzon and on two additional mediumwave transmitters installed during the 2010s in the cities of Giresun and Rize, respectively. Program material of broadcasts is said to cover all aspects of modern radio entertainment, with folk and classical music, discussion panels on a wide variety of topics, lectures, and drama, in addition to news coverage and official communiques from the military regime. However, for much of the week content is in fact limited to continuous music with short news bulletins every hour. Commercial advertisements and religious programs are conspicuously absent.
Programming schedules are screened by military officials, who must approve all material presented on air. Trabzon Radyosu consistently supports the state's policies. Its resources are used in criticisms of entities perceived as being hostile to the regime, including Islamists, Kemalists (republicans), Turkish nationalists, and neighboring states such as the Sultanate of Turkey and Republic of Greater Patnos. Its newscasts avoid all subjects inimical to the economic and security policies of the emperor or the ruling Administrative Council. Dissatisfaction with Trabzon Radyosu has prompted proposals by civil society groups to permit private, commercial broadcasting - mirroring similar proposals made prior to Doomsday vis-a-vis TRT.
Trabzon Radyosu is financed from the defense budget and license fees, collected annually by the government from all licensed owners of radio receivers. After 1986, the only radio receivers that could be purchased for private use in Trabzon are those that were previously licensed for private use and imported prior to that year. New imports of radio receivers are prohibited. If owners do not have an up to date license, they are technically forbidden from owning or transferring a receiver. This in effect limits Trabzonians to owning old radio receivers, mostly Nevtron sets produced in Turkey prior to Doomsday. Due to the age of most private radio receivers, the country is filled with lucrative electronics repair shops that specialize in servicing and maintaining radios and other vintage audio equipment from the pre-Doomsday era.
A brisk black market trade in FM and shortwave radio receivers has mushroomed, particularly after the weakening of border controls with former Soviet republics such as Georgia and Armenia allowed electronics to be smuggled into Trabzon through those countries. It is estimated that licenses have only been obtained for a third of the current FM and shortwave radios in use among the civilian population. Also smuggled into Trabzon from these nations are sub-components and parts, namely vacuum tubes, used in the repair of older receivers.
Television[]
It is unclear whether Trabzon possesses the financial, technical, or production resources to support a national television (TV) service. Television broadcasts in Trabzon ceased during Doomsday and have never been resumed. The Turkish government considered TV something of a luxury, and preferred to emphasize radio broadcasting for much of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, TRT's investment in TV facilities increased during the mid-1970s, and without Doomsday it's possible that TV may have overtaken radio as the preferred medium in Trabzon by the late 1980s.
Trabzon's military regime has rejected the reintroduction of TV, advancing various reasons to explain why the country did not need this medium while many less affluent nations in the region restored it in the decades following Doomsday. In general, the regime's long-term rejection of TV reflects two basic concerns, both centered around its monopoly of broadcasting. The first is the fear that the availability of cheap video recordings from abroad would eclipse whatever local productions were possible, and as a result erode state influence on media consumption. The second is that the ideological content of foreign program material, particularly Turkish-language news and propaganda broadcasts from neighboring states, would undermine the regime.
The private import and possession of TV sets is prohibited in Trabzon, and the Administrative Council has passed laws forbidding any citizen of the empire in participating in, or advertising on, any foreign television broadcast without the state's express permission. Exemptions have been granted to Trabzonian citizens being interviewed on TV broadcasts aired in states deemed friendly to the regime, namely Georgia. Employees of the State Security Service are believed to have access to imported TV and videocasette equipment, which they use to monitor and record foreign broadcasts.
Newspapers and periodicals[]
There are more than twenty Turkish-language daily newspapers in Trabzon, and innumerable weekly and monthly newspapers, many of them published in minority languages. Trabzonians are voracious readers, and due to the absence of television and restrictions on radio receivers, newspapers are the primary source of information. The mass circulation dailies are based in the capital and are distributed in all the larger cities and some of the smaller towns. These include the country's largest newspaper, Trabzon, which was originally established in 1866 as one of the Ottoman Empire's first regularly published newspapers. The newspaper operations were abandoned, then revived at some point in the mid twentieth century as a private venture, then abandoned again at some point prior to Doomsday. In 1989, the military regime revived the newspaper and placed its latest iteration under state ownership. The two largest dailies after Trabzon were Karadeniz and Karadeniz Olay, both of which were privately owned. Karadeniz is the oldest continuously published newspaper in the capital district, and enjoys a dedicated readership on par with the state-owned press.
A vast number of private newspapers proliferated in the capital after World War II, including Halk, Doğu, Yenigün, Son Haber, and Kuzey Haber, and many of these remain in limited (often weekly) circulation. The bi-weekly Ağani Murutsxi is the most popular minority language newspaper in Trabzon; it is published almost wholly in Lazi, with occasional articles in Hamshen Armenian (Hemşince), Georgian, and Romeika. The newspaper was modeled after Mçita Murutsxi, the world's first Laz-language newspaper, which was banned by the Turkish government in 1929. Trabzon's abandonment of the pre-Doomsday Turkish Republic's cultural and linguistic assimilation policies resulted in a revival of interest in Lazi, and the emergence of both Mçita Murutsxi as well as Ogni, a monthly periodical that focuses on local sports and Laz cultural events. The second largest minority language newspaper is Ğuaze, which is published in Circassian. The original Ğuaze newspaper was based in Istanbul and destroyed during Doomsday; however, prominent members of Trabzon's Circassian community reformed the newspaper during the 1990s with funding from local oligarch Ndirbek Musayev.
The most prominent Turkish-language magazine in Trabzon is Kıyı, which was published beginning in 1961 to focus on the cultural and artistic life of the capital. Kıyı has gradually increased the scope of its printing operations with each passing decade: for example, eleven issues appeared in 1961; this has increased to nineteen in 1969 and subsequently, to twenty-one in 1981. By the early 2000s, Kıyı was printing one hundred and twenty eight issues a year. The magazine is popular with Trabzon's elite and intellectuals for its focus on the arts.
All newspapers and periodicals must be registered with the Trabzon Bureau of Press Directorate, and in exchange receive a government publication license for a small fee.
Freedom of information[]
Freedom of information and the right of an independent press to circulate free of direct government control are long-standing traditions in Trabzon harkening back to the Ottoman Empire. However, these tenets are not guaranteed by legislation and have become increasingly tenuous. In 1999, the country's Administrative Council passed several decrees making it an offense to publish or communicate any information relating to the armed forces. The authorities are empowered to prosecute any editor who has published unofficial information about military or defense matters. The result has been that few newspapers publish anything affecting the armed forces except official press handouts and other material that has been released by military officials.
In 2017, an updated law on "de-Kemalization" was passed, enforcing the removal of monuments and memorials to individuals and events that symbolized Turkish nationalism, republicanism, or anything associated with the founder of the defunct Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. The law also prohibited the propagation of Atatürkçülük or any republican philosophy, including references to individuals, organizations, events or dates symbolizing the "regressive and non-sovereign republic of 1923-1983". The definition of Atatürkçülük contained in the legislation is so broad that it can be used to suppress any publications that are critical of the military regime. Newspaper editors critical of domestic policies have been retroactively prosecuted for making historical references to events in Turkey prior to Doomsday. For the same reason, Trabzonian newspapers are barred from reporting news events of some neighboring states, namely the Republic of Greater Patnos (which maintains Kemalism as a state ideology).
| ||||||||||||||
