Cryptocurrency journalism: How to do it and what to look out for?
The price of the popular cryptocurrency Bitcoin has almost quintupled in a year to more than 50,000 US dollars. As a result, a lot of Turkish-language content has focused solely on how much Bitcoin’s value has risen and fallen. Of course, cryptocurrency journalism is not a narrow field based on the value of Bitcoin. Different disciplines are needed to report on the market where hundreds of cryptocurrencies are traded.
Kadir Has University Faculty of Communication Lecturer İsmail Hakkı Polat, digital content producer and trainer Fatih Güner, Koin Bulletin editor İlkyaz Taşdemir, Koin Bulletin editor İlkyaz Taşdemir and lawyer Sima Baktaş evaluated cryptocurrency journalism, which requires competence in different fields such as economics and finance knowledge, foreign language proficiency and blockchain technology, for NewsLabTurkey.
Mainstream media fails in cryptocurrency news
Polat, who thinks that cryptocurrency news is covered negatively in the mainstream media, and that the reason for this is that the reporter or the responsible manager who prepares the news is ignorant about cryptocurrency or that the cryptocurrency market is equated with fraud, said, “Since September, cryptocurrency news has become popular in both mainstream and new media channels due to the remarkable rise of Bitcoin. However, some of the news is written without enough information to be speculative. There are more than a dozen cryptocurrency news sites, each attracting millions of monthly visitors. The financial publishers known as the mainstream media can’t keep up with these sites, especially when it comes to cryptocurrencies.”
Digital security and financial freedom
Polat thinks that journalists who will work in the field of cryptocurrency should have financial literacy skills and cryptocurrency literacy skills in particular. “Even if a cryptocurrency investor earns a lot of money, he cannot have financial freedom if he lacks a secure digital environment to store the money he earns. For this reason, journalists should be aware of the developments in the field of digital security and be able to convey them clearly to their readers.” Polat draws attention to the responsibility of journalists.
Noting that it is important for journalists to develop an approach towards cryptocurrencies, Polat said, “Journalists should be equipped to answer the questions of what is the real-life equivalent of cryptocurrencies, which problem does it solve in daily life, and what does it promise to cryptocurrency investors. It should develop an objective approach to trading platforms for investors who cannot keep their money or for those who want to be informed about the subject,” he says.
Noting that the cryptocurrency market will grow and interact with the traditional financial market, Polat makes the following suggestions regarding cryptocurrency journalism:
“A glossary or library of terms for the cryptocurrency market should be created in Turkey. It is very important for journalists to contribute to these terms. There are many newsletters, but words from foreign languages cannot be translated into Turkish. It is useful to publish evergreen, permanent information rather than hot news. I also find it important for journalists to open a discussion about where the cryptocurrency ecosystem is going.”
The basic principle of journalism: Verify
İlkyaz Taşdemir works as an editor at Koin Bulletin, a cryptocurrency information sharing platform that was launched in 2017. Taşdemir, who studied philosophy, says that he had a very difficult time when he first stepped into the finance sector: “I couldn’t understand what was being said at Bloomberg. The terms were very foreign to me. The same goes for the cryptocurrency industry.”
Stating that the cryptocurrency sector is quite vibrant, Taşdemir said, “The color of the business has changed with the recent increase in Bitcoin price, the increase in institutional demand and the inclusion of famous names such as Elon Musk in the market. Now, something new is being talked about on every platform, every second, and it is not easy to keep up with this speed. For this, it is necessary to be a good researcher and not to jump at every piece of information as ‘true’. This is a habit that is acquired over time,” he says, pointing out that one of the basic principles of journalism is to confirm the news first.
Information pollution and fake news
When I asked Taşdemir about the difficulties he faced while working, he prioritized the problems of information pollution and fake news:
“You come across a few articles, the article ranks high, but it is empty. It consists of sentences and arguments of uncertain origin. I search the sentences one by one to find out where they got the information, but I get irrelevant results. In the cryptocurrency industry, or even in journalism in general, there should be no room for such mistakes. It will be proven wrong in a few minutes, but the worst part is that they don’t care about the risk. That’s why I don’t think it’s right to do things just for the sake of clicks. They may be making money, but I don’t think they have a real readership. No matter what happens, it is necessary not to compromise on quality and to pursue the truth.”
Digital content producer and trainer Fatih Güner, who published Turkey’s first cryptocurrency newsletter “kriptopara.io”, thinks that there is no cryptocurrency journalism in Turkey. Saying that journalism requires research, discipline, format and ethics, Güner said, “Today, there are websites that produce content on cryptocurrencies in Turkey or social media accounts, most of which are behind outdated names. These are not journalism, but rather distribution. Therefore, if I evaluate it on the axis of content distribution rather than journalism, I can say that there is a manipulative content distribution/dissemination,” he says.
Güner thinks that no content that criticizes Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies is given importance and discussed, “It is obvious that the exchanges trading in Turkey offer a lot of PR content. Therefore, we see only a lot of praise for cryptocurrencies. This manipulates both the society and the mainstream media about cryptocurrencies. Since the society does not see and know enough about the criticisms made about cryptocurrencies, the shortcomings in the technology, the problems in use, the big and small effects on this field, they feel that cryptocurrencies are bigger than they are, which I think is the last point of manipulation.”
Güner, who thinks that journalists who will work on cryptocurrency journalism should understand the criticisms against cryptocurrencies well, states that the most important of these criticisms are black money and terrorism financing:
“I think journalists working on cryptocurrencies in Turkey should include criticism from an objective point of view, instead of just covering Bitcoin and supporting their programs with PR budgets. That’s why they are slowly losing their credibility. The questions they ask their guests, which are obviously prepared in advance, the way they always try to frame the topics, their leading statements are perceived as far from professional standards and professionalism.”
Legal regulation dimension
Evaluating the legal status of cryptocurrency for NewsLabTurkey, lawyer Sima Baktaş emphasizes that there is no regulation on cryptocurrencies, but this does not make cryptocurrencies illegal: “Since there are no prohibitive regulations on buying and selling cryptocurrencies, Turkish citizens and other legally eligible foreigners can buy and sell cryptocurrencies in Turkey.”
Baktaş states that deliberate misleading and inaccurate news reports aimed at intervening in the markets may constitute a crime according to the Capital Markets Law, but since cryptocurrencies do not have a legal status as securities or goods in Turkey, it remains unclear under which laws and articles similar news reports on this subject will be legally evaluated.
Emphasizing that news about cryptocurrencies and crypto platforms that are deliberately made and cause damage to investors or related platforms can be prosecuted according to the provisions of the general law, Baktaş adds that penalties may be imposed under the Turkish Penal Code or other laws depending on the content of the news and complaint.
