• A Turkish airlines flight crashed en route to Amsterdam on Wednesday morning. Nine people died. 
  

• A propos my recent trilogy on the media and politics in Turkey, it's interesting to read the different takes on the initial reports circulating about the apparent suicide of the head of  the Turkish Special Forces, a branch of the national police. In the version reported by Hurriyet, a newspaper that is owned by Dogan holding (whose owner, Aydin Dogan, is currently in a war of words with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, and whose company has recently been hit with a whopping $490 million tax bill that threatens the existence of the company), Special Forces head Behcet Oktay shot himself Wednesday morning after being linked to allegations of wrongdoing in the ongoing Ergenekon investigation (the English language version also mentions the Ergenekon angle). On the other hand, Zaman newspaper, which is seen as a supporter of Erdogan's AK Party government, makes no mention of the Ergenekon investigation in its English-language reporting of the event. On its Turkish site, Zaman raises the possibility of the suicide having been related to a "forbidden love."

What's the significance of this? Opposition newspapers (among which Dogan holding's papers—such as Hurriyet, Milliyet, and Radikal—should now be included) are complaining that the Ergenekon investigation is turning into a witch hunt against the military and the opposition. Expect them to attempt to make some political hay out of the suicide. Supporters of the AK Party, like Zaman (and, in the eyes of many people here, Taraf) treat the Ergenekon investigation more at face value, and usually pay little or no attention to accusations that the investigation is being used, in part, as a pretext to intimidate the opposition. Expect them to downplay this angle. As of early Thursday morning Taraf wasn't even covering the suicide on its website.

Who knows? Maybe the suicide really was about "forbidden love." Or maybe it was because of the Ergenekon investigation. The point is that, by looking closely at details like this, it is possible to gain some understanding regarding where a newspaper's sympathies lie vis-a-vis the folks in power. And issues related to Ergenekon constitute the biggest litmus test of all. 

• The Dogan Group newspapers, meanwhile, are not even pretending to be objective in their reporting of the massive fine the Turkish finance ministry has levied upon the Dogan Group.  On the first page of the website of Hurriyet-English, readers are invited to read a "Special Report on Dogan's Unfair Tax Fine." Cumhuriyet, meanwhile (which is, however, no friend of the Dogan Group) published a rare front-page editorial on Monday denouncing the tax levy as an assault on Turkey's free press. Taraf and Zaman have been considerably more mealy-mouthed on the issue, sticking mainly to detail-type stories such as the huge sell-off of Dogan Holding shares on the Istanbul stock exchange this week in response to the investigation.
  

• Meanwhile, as of early Thursday morning, Hurriyet was entirely ignoring a story that has made big news internationally, Democratic Society Party (known as DTP in Turkish, and considered a pro-Kurdish rights party) leader Ahmet Turk's addressing his parliamentary group in parliament in Kurdish. Speaking Kurdish at all has been illegal at various times in Turkish history, and even today it is illegal to address people at political rallies in Kurdish or distribute campaign literature in Kurdish.
  

Turk is placing Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan in a difficult position ahead of nationwide municipal elections on March 29. Traditionally, Erdogan's AK Party has done well in the Kurdish southeast, and this year the AK Party is putting a lot of effort into building the party up in the region (such as through the AK Party governor of Tunceli's efforts—which were later disqualified by the elections board—to distribute hundreds of free appliances to area residents last month). Indeed, while Turk's use of Kurdish today does not appear to break the law (he was speaking to his own parliamentary group, not at a political rally), Erdogan (who is Turkish) actually has used Kurdish recently at a rally, saying the sentence "May TRT6 be beneficial" in Kurdish to commemorate the opening of a new government-operated television channel, TRT6, which broadcasts in Kurdish for several hours each day. 

Erdogan is now in the uncomfortable position of either denouncing Turk's actions and losing votes with a constituency he has been wooing lately, or else losing votes among Turks angered by Turk's use of Kurdish if Erdogan is perceived as not responding aggressively enough.

• The Ibo Show, Ibrahim Tatlises' weekly variety program, is supposedly going off the air after eighteen years of singing, discussion, the holding of some occasionally slimy interviews, and controversy. In an announcement released on Wednesday, Tatlises claimed the decision to end the show was his own, following his hurt feelings on the heels of an on-air confrontation he had last Sunday with singer Yildiz Tilbe. 

End of the line? Ibo calls it quits
after on-air spat.