ABSTRACT
The commercial satellite channel Magic Box, which broadcasts from Germany in Turkish to bypass the state monopoly of broadcasting in Turkey, showed via Cable News Network (CNN) the first bombs falling on Baghdad and remained hooked to it. The public network, Turkish Radio and Television (TRT), surrendered after three days of autarky and began transmitting CNN pictures with simultaneous translation. The public television network, which is controlled by the government, also found itself in the embarrassing position of crudely censoring a CNN report on US planes taking off from the Incirlik airbase in the southern part of Turkey on bombing missions in Iraq. Compared to the United States and United Kingdom, there was much less unanimity and considerably greater meaningful debate about the war in the Turkish media. For pictures from the front, the Turkish media relied by and large on the Western news agencies and television services.
