Ahmet Emin Yalman


Ahmet Emin Yalman was a Turkish journalist, author and professor. Yalman was a liberal and opposed the spread of the Nazi ideology in his home country.

Life

Ahmet Emin Yalman was born in 1888 in Thessaloniki, which at that time was part of the Ottoman Empire.
Educated at Columbia University, he returned to Turkey in 1914 and became first associate professor of sociology, and then professor of statistics, at Istanbul University, and also worked as a journalist. In 1919 he was exiled to Kutahia, by the order of the Sultan Mehmet VI and in 1920 to Malta by the British Occupation forces.
On his release, the national government in Ankara offered him the post of Director-General of Press and Information and the job of Ambassador to Washington, D.C., but he asked to be excused because he wanted to focus on his journalistic work.

Work and awards

Yalman was the founder, and for many years the editor, of the influential Turkish nationalist newspaper Vatan. He was also one of the founders of the Liberal International in 1947 and the International Press Institute in 1950.
He published three books in English, one in German, and more than ten in Turkish, including his autobiography in four volumes. Titles include The Development of Modern Turkey as Measured by Its Press, An Experiment in Clean Journalism, Turkey In My Time and Turkey in the World War.
Awards he received included the Golden Pen of Freedom of the International Federation of Newspaper Publishers in 1961 and The Gold Medal of the British Institute of Journalists.