Media continue to play a vital role in hindering as well as enabling “civic culture”. This chapter focuses on how this hindering process takes shape through analysis of news verification or fact-checking organizations in Turkey. The chapter argues that the rising fact checking or news verification organizations in the last decade have not managed to push back against authoritarianism and disinformation, but instead circulate sensational and tabloidized format and content. The chapter will briefly introduce and discuss the rise of organizations reclaiming truth in the Turkish political and communication context. It will then trace the tabloidizing elements through the personalization of politics and foregrounding the human side of politics as well as humorous representation. Finally, the chapter, again by tracing textual content, debates how these organizations which are dedicated to establish facts actually serve to reinforce and function in line with the oppressive governments with nationalist and religious references.

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Gencel Bek, Mine (2021): “Reclaiming and Tabloidizing ‘truth’ in Turkey”, in: Martin Conboy and Scott Eldridge (Eds.): Global Tabloid: Culture and Technology. London, pp. 198–212.