Ipek Y.

About

I have worked as an international journalist, covered diplomacy and international news for various national and international media outlets both in Turkey and abroad including Associated Press, BBC, Mc Clatchy News, Daily Hurriyet, Hurriyet Daily News, Daily Milliyet, TRT Turk, and Daily Cumhuriyet for 23 years. I have been working as a freelance journalist (producer, commentator and reporter) since November 2019 for various media outlets such as Al Jazeera, CNN International, TV2 Denmark, Associated Press, etc. I studied BA in Radio-Television and Cinema at the Faculty of Communication at Marmara University in Istanbul. I started journalism as a reporter at Turkish Daily Cumhuriyet which is regarded as the “school of journalism” in Turkey. Because of my work in journalism, I won the coveted “UN Dag Hammarskjöld Scholarship” which was given by the UN Correspondents Association to only 3 journalists around the world in order to cover UN General Assembly for 4 months in New York in 2002. In 2004, I won a Chevening Scholarship from the British Council and went to UK to study my Masters. I studied my MA degree in “International Journalism” at the City University of London between 2004 and 2006. I worked for Associated Press Television News and BBC as a producer while I was in London. After coming back to Turkey in 2006, I started working for Turkish Daily “Milliyet” as a foreign news editor and diplomatic correspondent. While I was working at Milliyet, due to my work in journalism, I again won a coveted fellowship program for professional journalists called “Knight Wallace Fellowship” at the University of Michigan in US. I joined seminars on different fields of journalism and took classes on Middle East history and world politics at the University of Michigan for five months in 2008. I worked for TRT (Turkish Radio Television Channel) Turk as the Middle East editor for one year between 2010 and 2011. I worked as an editor and senior diplomatic correspondent for the most major newspaper in Turkey, Daily Hürriyet and its English language newspaper - Hürriyet Daily News for 9 years between 2011 and November 2019. Due to my work in the field; I have traveled many countries both in Europe and in the Middle east region including Germany, France, UK, Belgium, Italy, Greece, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and many other countries for covering various foreign policy issues ranging from EU issues to civil war in Syria. I have been to conflict zone such as northern Syria during the war and northern Iraq after the so-called Islamic State’s (IS) occupation of Mosul and surrounding villages. During my profession, I also made interviews with many foreign leaders and diplomats including former Israeli President Shimon Peres, former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, former US Secretary of State Madeline Albright, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissenger, Iranian Vice President Masoumeh Ebtekar, etc… In March 2016, I won the “Journalism Success Award” from the most major and influential journalism association in Turkey, Turkish Journalists Association (TGC) with my published interviews with the Yazidi women who were enslaved by ISIS in 2015.

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