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# taz.de -- Turkey, Istanbul: BirGün
> BirGün newspaper was founded as a leftist newspaper. It was supported by
> labor unions, engineer and architecture chambers, and socialist political
> parties.
Bild: The editors.
In 2004, BirGün newspaper was founded as a leftist newspaper which was
supported by labor unions, engineer and architecture chambers, and
socialist political parties. In the monopolistic media sistem, our
newspaper encountered some difficulties about distrubution, paper prices
etc.
Now circulation of our newspaper is low (it’s also about the conservative
political atmosphere in Turkey) but the impact of our paper is high because
we are the only socialist paper and also in the new media system only
opponent media instution in Turkey.
## BirGün on the market
The main competitors are the big national quality /mainstream papers in
Turkey (Hurriyet, Milliyet, Sabah, etc.) and also the Islamic papers which
are supported by goverment and some Islamic religional groups. This sets
Birgün as a disadvantage because in Turkey, papers are financed by big
global companies or İslamic capital.
Distrubution system is also monopolistic, there are two distrubution firm
which are owned by big companies. Also the advertisement sector is
monopolistic so it is difficult to compete with the mainstream papers in
this system.
In Turkey there are two cencorship mechanism, one of them is
self-cencorship which is applied by journalists, the other one is
instutional cencorship whis is applied by instutions. Authoritarian
goverment also keeps the judgement system and they arrest the journalists.
Our two reporters are in prison now and also we have a lot of lawsuits.
Our readers are especially socialists in Turkey. And also some social
democrats, revolutioner youths are the readers of us. Our readership is so
active and with high regard for solidarity. Especially in the social media
our readers make effort to make known our newspaper.
## What makes us different from others
The front page and its bold, creative headlines are famous in Turkey. Every
day our headlines are agued in social media. We have two inserts on
weekends, book insert and Sunday insert which have some special topics
argued by academics and intellectuals. We have the largest columnist staff
among all daily newspapers in Turkey.
We have 35 fully employed, 10 casual/freelance staff work for our paper.
BirGün has many big editorial achivements for 8 years. But the highly
argued one is a news about a hidden agreement between the Chief of General
Staff Yaşar Büyükanıt and the President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. We found the
hidden documents of the agreement. BirGun also found the hidden tombs of
some Kurdish people who were killed by state.
The paper's financial resources are scarce compared to its main competitors
in the market. The main problems are, our advertisement revenues are low,
paper prices are high and volatile, distrubution fees are high because of
the monopolistic system.
The main strategy of us is to expand our subscription system. And also we
want to use the online side more efficient. We will sell the pdf of our
published newspaper from our website. And also we have many supporters who
live in Europe, especially in Germany, Switzerland and Holland. We want to
publish our paper in Germany also but we need a partner from this country.
## Where we want to be in 5 years
In 2017 BirGun will have a large subscription/distrubution system, will
have an effective online journalism and online sell, will solve the print
house and paper problem.
In Turkey the commercial newspaper work is not possible with cooperative
structure. So BirGun Newspaper started its work with a joint-stock company.
Our company initially had 3000 share holders. Our company has founded in
2004. Our initial capital was 400.000 Turkish Liras.
Now our financial capital is 1 million Turkish Liras. There is no lost or
profit now, our paper can keep its lost-profit balance. There are some
disadvantages for us in the monopolistic media system so we can not gain
big profits in this system.
We have some projects for increase our profişts but now we hav not enough
capital. For example we can found a left-socialst web site with a foreign
newspaper or news agency. We can sell subscription of e-Newspaper with
PDF’s.
17 Jun 2013
## TAGS
Cooperative Society
BirGün
Istanbul
Turkey
Newspaper
## ARTIKEL ZUM THEMA
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