"The View from Turkey
The main thrust of this piece in Standpoint by Claire Berlinski (via), who lives in Istanbul, concerns the disjunction between the benign picture of the ruling Islamist AKP party as presented in the Western media, and the ugly reality:
When Western journalists note in a casual aside that press freedom has experienced certain setbacks under the AKP, they are failing to do justice to the severity of this calamity and its ramifications for Turkey and the region. The calamity is exacerbated by the tendency of the foreign media to repeat, without scrutiny, the very idiocies peddled in the Turkish press, where the range of opinion on offer has become severely limited. The result is the growth of a grossly distorted and dangerous consensus about Turkey, here and abroad — to wit, that Turkey under the AKP has become more democratic and politically healthier..."
More:Mick Hartley: The View from Turkey
