# 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.
       
 (IMG) 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
       
 (DIR) Cooperative Society
 (DIR) BirGün
 (DIR) Istanbul
 (DIR) Turkey
 (DIR) Newspaper
       
       ## ARTIKEL ZUM THEMA