Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Wednesday appointed Professor Fahrettin Altun, a columnist for the Sabah newspaper, to serve as head of the communications department that was recently created in the transition to a presidential system of governance, the Cumhuriyet daily reported.
“All media has been put under the control of a Sabah columnist,” Cumhuriyet said in its commentary on Altun’s appointment.
Altun, general coordinator of pro-Erdoğan think tank the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA) and a columnist for Sabah and Daily Sabah, both part of the Turkuvaz Media Group run by the brother of Erdoğan’s son-in-law, Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak, was also contributing two programs to Turkey’s public broadcaster, the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT).
Fecir Alptekin, corporate communications group president at Turkuvaz, was appointed an adviser to Erdoğan.