Servet Yanatma

Servet Yanatma is an independent researcher and journalist.  He holds a BA and MA in history from the Bogazici University in Istanbul. In 2015, he completed his PhD program in Middle East Technical University with the title of The International News Agencies in the Ottoman Empire, 1854-1908. His research interests are political economy of media, media ownership, freedom of press, digital news, international news agencies, public diplomacy, media and politics in the late Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey.

Servet was a journalist fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in the academic year of 2015-16 where he wrote a research paper entitled “Media Capture and Advertising in Turkey: The Impact of the State on News”. He has contributed to the Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report of Reuters Institute for the last two years, writing the Turkey country profile. He also wrote “Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2017 Turkey Supplementary Report”, a national report which provides a more detailed examination of the Turkish data collected as part of the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2017.

Besides occasionally contributing to international media as a freelance journalist, he has worked for international institutions and companies as a communication consultant. Before this, Servet was senior foreign policy reporter of Zaman daily, based in Ankara. After he began his career as a journalist with Cihan News Agency in 2003, he worked as the deputy foreign news editor at Zaman daily from for a year in Istanbul. He then covered Turkish foreign policy for Zaman daily from 2007 to 2015 in Ankara. His job description included, but was not limited to, writing investigative and enterprise stories on Turkey and the region and following routine developments in his field. He also wrote news analysis, commentary, and op-eds on foreign policy. He conducted interviews with presidents, premiers, and heads of international organisations. Apart from following international summits such as the United Nations and NATO, Servet covered regional crises such as Syria, Libya and Ukraine.

In 2017, Servet attended the summer school of the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom at the European University Institute on “Journalism in the digital age: responding to propaganda and fake news”. He also participated in the New Media, New Challenges: Turkish - Armenian - American Journalist Exchange Program with the fellowship of the US State Department and he worked as a visiting journalist at Durango Herald for a month in 2011. He was invited to The Impact of Digital Freedom, Social Media and Citizen Journalism on Cross-Cultural Relations by The United Nations Alliance of Civilizations Forum (Doha, 2011). He also attended the European Union Journalism Education programs in Brussels. Servet taught at The Turkish Local Media on the EU Path Conferences organized by the Turkish Ministry of EU Affairs and the British Embassy in Ankara. He also served as the member of Governing Board of Diplomatic Correspondents Association (2013-2015). He received the first rank at “Gencler Tarih Yazıyor [The Youth Is Writing History]” competition organized by the Foundation for the Economic and Social History of Turkey in 2001, and his articles were published in Toplumsal Tarih (Journal of Social History).