When Uğur Mumcu was assassinated on January 24, 1993 when a bomb exploded in his car, the legacy he left behind was not only the courage of a journalist but also the manifesto of a conscience. He was the pen that single-handedly deciphered the chains of corruption that stretched from ’The Infantryman with the Clumsy Infantry“ to ”The Rabıtalar“, from the deep state to the mafia. Although he stood close to the ideological roots of the CHP, he would go after corruption, favoritism and irregularities wherever he saw them.
Mumcu saw journalism not as “vigilantism” but as “advocacy for the people”. Today, on the contrary, some pens claiming to come from the same leftist tradition are playing the role of “hitmen” to cover up the CHP's corruption in the municipalities. Two of the most striking symbols of this corruption are BirGün writer Timur Soykan and young journalist Ali Macit.
Ugur Mumcu's Legacy: Investigating, Exposing
Mumcu's journalism was free from ideological blindness. Even in the pre-AKP period, he did not hesitate to write about the rot within the “left” governments or the bureaucracy. He enlightened the public with his books, columns and documents. It has been 33 years since he was murdered, but his case has still not been “solved”. Because he was not just a journalist, he was the disturbing conscience of the system. Known as an “intellectual” in the CHP tradition, Mumcu did not ignore corruption for “party interests”; on the contrary, he wanted the party to be held accountable.
From Timur Soykan to Ali Macit: Defending, Justifying, Lynching
Today, however, BirGün columnist Timur Soykan and Sözcü Daily reporter/Medyascope Agenda Producer Ali Macit (born in Istanbul in 1999) are playing the opposite role. While the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality's (IBB) “stock market” case - a huge file with 414 defendants, 143 defendants and 143 confessors - is on the agenda, Soykan, in his BirGün article “IBB Indictment-1: Where is the money?”, questions the “corruption money” in the indictment, emphasizing that there is no trace of the 10-15 percent allegedly transferred to the “system” and that there is no concrete evidence of money. Likewise, in his broadcasts with Murat Ağırel, he discusses how the figures in the allegations (from 560 billion to 60 billion) have melted down, and manipulates public opinion by likening the case to a ’conspiracy“.
In his “Konuşmazsak Olmaz” programs with Engin Deniz İpek on Medyascope (April 2026), Ali Macit constantly emphasizes the “confessor crises” and “contradictory testimonies”; he openly states that the statements of Naim Erol Özgüner, Head of IBB IT Department, “do not reflect the truth” and that his statements are unreliable despite the fact that he created 27 defendants in “Action 13”. He discusses the defenses of the defendants and the details of the trial within a “political” framework, almost acting as the CHP's defense lawyer.
Other allegations within the CHP, such as the corruption operations against Uşak Mayor Özkan Yalım and personal scandals, are either silent or dismissed as an “AKP conspiracy”.
This attitude is classic “vigilantism”: Headline the irregularities of the ruling party, while watering down the same allegations in opposition municipalities with “gossip” or the question “where is the money?”. Timur Soykan and Ali Macit do not represent Uğur Mumcu's legacy, but the party's “protective shield”. Mumcu would have blasted corruption with his documents; Soykan weakens the case by asking “where is the money?”, while Macit argues that the confessors “do not reflect the truth”. While journalism once required “courage, labor and conscience”, today “party loyalty and job guarantees” are enough for some.
The Chain Effect of Corruption in the Press
The tender scandals, appointments of relatives, ’torpil“ mechanisms and the alleged transfer of public resources to the party organization in the metropolitan cities governed by the CHP since 2019 are no longer a secret. The ”IBB stock exchange“ file in Istanbul, similar allegations in Ankara and Izmir... While the party administration covers these up as ”political lynching“, Timur Soykan and Ali Macit-type journalists in BirGün, Sözcü, Medyascope and similar media outlets follow the same line. Critical voices are labeled as ”AKP agents“ and internal opposition is excluded as ”change-makers“.
This corruption is also poisoning the press. Financial dependency (municipal advertisements, sponsorships, consultancies) and ideological fear turn journalists into “hit men”. At the time of Uğur Mumcu's murder, journalism was “the people against the state”; today, “the truth against the CHP” is silenced. The role of Timur Soykan and Ali Macit is precisely here: To explain the trial process as “no money, confessor crisis”, to manipulate public opinion and to exonerate the party.
Conclusion Disinheritance, Descent into Unscrupulousness
From Uğur Mumcu to Timur Soykan to Ali Macit, this corruption is the tragedy not only of a journalist, but of a profession and a political tradition. The CHP received votes from its voters with the promise of “clean governance”, yet its municipalities have become synonymous with corruption allegations. The press, on the other hand, became a part of this corruption, not its defense. Real journalism, like Mumcu, questions the party, the municipality and the president. Vigilantism, on the other hand, protects only “our people”, as Soykan and Macit did.
If we want freedom of the press and democracy in Turkey, we must first stop this decline from “Mumcu to Soykan to Macit”. The CHP leadership must strengthen internal control and investigate corruption allegations instead of covering them up. Journalists should dedicate their pens to the conscience of the people, not to party interests. Otherwise, not only the body of Uğur Mumcu will be buried, but also the spirit of journalism. And those who kill that spirit will be remembered as “hitmen” in the pages of history.