About 11 years ago, while sitting in a branch of a coffee chain that so many in Istanbul now boycott, a veteran Turkish journalist told me something I have never forgotten. “A large part of journalism,” he said, leaning over the table, “is simply running.”
Last week, as thousands of media members sprinted through the corridors of the NATO summit in Ankara, trying to keep pace with the world's most powerful alliance leaders, that piece of advice echoed loudly in my ears. On the summit’s first day, June 7, we ran so relentlessly that by dawn on Day 2, I had completely abandoned my dress shoes for sneakers. Watching my international colleagues stride comfortably through the venue in practical footwear gave me the courage to do the same. Don’t judge me, as we Turkish journalists tend to place an almost ceremonial importance on suits and polished appearances, a persistent sectoral misconception born, perhaps, out of an established tradition or a lack of global field experience.
Yet the running, as it turned out, had begun long before any journalist laced up their sneakers.
Days before the first foreign delegates arrived, the Turkish capital itself had begun sprinting toward summit mode. For months, streets were repaired, medians were replanted, sidewalks were power-washed, and much more was done. It was a civic makeover that quickly became the subject of widespread public ridicule. Societies, after all, naturally resent the implication that their own daily lives deserve less dignity than the image projected to foreign dignitaries.
