Power of the Press Lord

Aydin Dogan wants to make one thing perfectly clear. "All I want is transparency," says the Turkish media magnate. "I want for my country exactly the same conditions as there are in the West." His words, spoken after parliament approved a complex and harsh new media law, do not reflect disappointment. Rather, he is pleased to have got his way on the one bit of the law that matters most to him. Dogan, like other owners of major Turkish media outlets, now will be able to own, legally and publicly, what he already controls clandestinely.

With the emergence...