The practice of readers' representation in Turkish press: A study on readers' representative columns of Hürriyet, Milliyet and Sabah newspapers

The practice of readers' representation which is an internal control mechanism has become gradually widespread in media establishments of Turkey as well as in the world. The practice of readers' representation aims to develop the principles of journalistic ethics. The representative has a bridging role between the newspaper and the readers. He/she reports the complaints of the readers to the other staff members of the newspaper. When needed, he/she warns them to obey the rules and principles of journalistic ethics. The readers' representative receives complaints from the newspaper's readers, he/she handles the complaints in his/her column which is regularly published in every week and she/he tries to answer the complaints. This study tries to determine the role of the practice of readers' representation on development of ethical standards in the newspaper. For that purpose, the readers' representative columns of Hürriyet, Milliyet and Sabah Newspapers are analyzed with Content Analysis Technique. The data has been transferred to SPSS 16.0 program and solved in accordance with this purpose. Encouragement of the generalization of the practice of readers' representation would ensure the rise of ethical standards. It not only increases the respectability of journalists and the newspapers as institutions, but also it would contribute to the expectations of readers and society from newspapers. This study is important as it will contribute to studies on journalistic ethics. Keywords: Journalism, ethic in journalism, readers' represantative, ombudsman.