BLOG: Radikal newspaper curtsies goodbye and takes leave from Turkey’s sick sector

What an ironic date for a farewell: On June 21, at the beginning of the summer, Radikal - arguably the most important newspaper in the Turkish media landscape to overtly adopt a rights-based perspective, while still managing to remain relevant to the general public - was printed and distributed for the last time, as it heads into a digital-only format.

As the summer sun was reaching its height in Turkey, journalism was painfully sliding towards its nadir, with the whole sector losing its sense of purpose: Investigating and reporting facts.

When first published in 1996 under the slogan "We are radical," the daily with the white eagle was a breath of fresh air. Over the years, it ran dozens of stories with memorable headlines that made a huge impact, became an academy for talented young journalists, and gave unprecedented coverage to topics that had not been considered news by other dailies: The environment, social issues, minority rights, LGBTs, to name just a few.

In a way, abandoning its printed edition to fully embrace this "digital era" could have been considered a final act of insurrection worthy of the "radicalism" that Radikal once claimed. But, unfortunately, it rather reflects an act of desperation to keep afloat a quality daily whose circulation plummeted to lows of a mere 20,000. Needless to say, Radikal will not be entering its new online cycle with the same human resources as before.

Now, the challenge that it faces is also common to the specific practice of Internet journalism that has developed in Turkey. Prêt-à-porter stories, mostly copy-pasted from often messy agency reports, with only a small bit of make-up added for the title, account for most of the news: A "she said this, he said that" with sloppy editing ...