Farewell to a master of words...

Many years ago, in early 1997, I was invited to the headquarters of Milliyet in Istanbul.

I was a young "editor at large," just at the beginning of my second - and last - return to what was then the "Turkish" but has now become the "Hürriyet" Daily News. It was a very exciting event. Leaving the Ankara village, going to Istanbul and sitting in talks with the "giants of Turkish journalism" was a very exciting moment even for an editor at large.

Apparently, I exaggerated a lot. It turned out that I was invited for a discussion on online journalism. Though the Daily News, because of my insistence on launching it on May 19, 1996 - as a tribute to the anniversary of the 1919 start of the Turkish War of Liberation - narrowly missed out on becoming the first electronic Turkish newspaper instead of Zaman. Thus, both the Daily News and I, who initiated and personally wrote the entire site plan and undertook the HTML work of it, enjoyed prominent prestige.

Milliyet has always been a paper that contributed greatly to Turkish literature by publishing and distributing valuable literary works. Apparently, the newly appointed "electronic editor" of Milliyet wanted to include a panel discussion on electronic journalism on the sidelines of a book fair and invited me to discuss how to plan the event together. That was indeed a great idea and for many years, panel discussions on electronic media became an integrated part of such fairs.

The subject was interesting. I was very much interested in such issues. Yet, either because the people at Milliyet thought I was an "alien" to the subject or were unaware what they were talking about, they kept on beating around the bush and could not come to the point. After hours of a long, boring discussion, I made...