NewsLabTurkey Research Hub’s new report entitled TRT World: An Anti-Geopolitical Broadcasting Instrument evaluates Turkey’s 24-hour state-run English language news channel. The first part of the report focuses on the history of international news broadcasting, including prior non-Turkish language broadcasts of the Turkish Radio Television Corporation like TRT Avaz that broadcasts in various Balkan and Turkic languages. As this section of the report makes clear, international news broadcasting has become entangled with international politics since the First World War. This blurs the line between news and propaganda; Radio Free Europe backed by the CIA and Radio Liberation backed by the Soviet intelligence service during the Cold War offer striking examples of where the line has been crossed.

The second section of the report entitled “‘To Know Us Is to Love Us’: International News Broadcasting by Authoritarian, Semi-Authoritarian and Backsliding States” considers the international broadcasting activities of Russia, China, Iran as well as Turkey. “To know us is to love us” is a term that Rawnsley (2015) employs to describe the motivation of Chinese international broadcasts in particular. Indeed, the Chinese authorities believe that they can gain more sympathy in the world if only the members of the international community get to know China better. In distinction, Russia’s broadcasting activities are aimed specifically at opposing American policies. Iran’s Press TV, for its part, has a radically anti-Western broadcasting policy. Where Turkey’s TRT World can be located across this spectrum of international news broadcasting is the main subject of the report’s second part. 

The report’s third section entitled “Can TRT World Become ‘Turkey’s Al Jazeera?’” first describes in detail the “Al Jazeera effect” and the “CNN effect” in international news broadcasting. A realistic assessment of whether or not the TRT World can become as influential as Al Jazeera as it aspires to is also included in this section. The report’s main findings are as follows: 

• International News Broadcasting Has Become Intertwined with International Politics: Since World War I, state-sponsored international news broadcasting has turned into an extension of international political rivalries. This intertwining has become particularly more pronounced during the Cold War and makes news, public diplomacy and propaganda nearly indistinguishable in some cases. 
• The Success of State-Sponsored International News Broadcasting Varies: From the negligible ratings of American-sponsored Alhurra television that broadcasts in the Middle East to “virtual Arab state” Al Jazeera whose ratings challenged the BBC’s Arabic service; state-sponsored news broadcasts achieve different degrees of success. Despite being sponsored by the United Kingdom, the BBC is the epitome of the principle of impartiality. State-sponsored Al Jazeera has a unique semi-independent status from the state of Qatar. Russia Today and China’s CGTN are fully embedded in their respective state structures and their viewership is reasonably high but not satisfactory. 
• To Know Is Not to Love: The fundamental reason why authoritarian, semi-authoritarian and backsliding states cannot achieve greater success in international news broadcasting is their inability to control the flow of information on human rights abuses from Western sources. As long as Western news organizations keep reporting on grave human rights violations in Tibet or in Ukraine, Russia Today and CGTN are likely to struggle with their viewership figures.
• Anti-Geopolitics Against News Flow from the West: Anti-geopolitics is a new global school of thought that seeks to reverse West-centric geopolitical assumptions. Anti-geopolitics calls for a restructuring of global institutions that are dominated by Western states and news organizations alongside creative industries participate in these demands for change. Al Jazeera is the most successful news organization in the anti-geopolitics school of thought. Yet anti-geopolitical news-making risks shortchanging the global agenda which is still set primarily by the West.
• TRT World as an Instrument of Anti-Geopolitics: TRT World too is essentially an instrument of anti-geopolitics and has succumbed to heavy government influence particularly in the aftermath of the unsuccessful coup attempt on 15 July 2016. News broadcasts demanding the extradition of US resident Fethullah Gülen, accused by Turkey of masterminding the coup attempt, are among the reasons that the US Department of Justice has labeled TRT World as a “foreign agent” that seeks to alter US government policies. TRT World has indeed been evolving into the “Turkish government’s world” as government representatives and other figures connected with the government frequently appear as guests on its programs. 

Can TRT World Become “Turkey’s Al Jazeera”?: With vast budgetary means, Al Jazeera broadcasts to a region with a common regional language and its English language broadcasts have also achieved global reach. TRT World, with a comparatively modest budget, is still a regional channel. TRT World and similar channels like Russia Today do appeal to their respective diaspora communities around the world. However, diaspora communities already live in “cultural border zones” as one scholar puts it (Karanfil, 2009). TRT World needs to practice independent journalism free of government influence in order to appeal beyond these cultural limits.