“Hold on a minute, I think something’s happening in Turkey.”
Friday afternoon, I was sitting in the green room of the Washington, D.C. studios of TRT World, the international branch of the Turkish government-owned TV and radio corporation.
The channel had invited me to come on to pre-tape a segment about Mike Pence, and this was my first visit to the studio.
My taping was supposed to start at 3:30 p.m. but was held up a little (because of non-coup events). While I waited, I scrolled through Twitter on my phone and watched CNN coverage of the Nice attacks on the green room TV.
To paint a picture of the TRT World green room, it’s probably the only place in the country with poster-sized covers of National Geographic on one wall and film posters for “The Nut Job” and “The Fluffy Movie” signed by Gabriel Iglesias on the other.
At 3:40 p.m., the studio manager, who had already apologized for the delays, came in and said “hold on a minute, I think something’s happening in Turkey.”
My initial thought was another terrorist attack in Istanbul or Ankara. I searched “Turkey” on Twitter and saw tweets about F-16s flying low across those cities, the Bosphorus Bridge closed by troops and rumors about a possible coup.
The studio manager was trying to figure out what was going on, noting that it was highly unusual for their feed to go completely black instead of showing reruns. At 3:50, he came back to the green room and said they were ready to tape my segment despite all the chaos.
As I was walking in, another studio worker said to the manager, “they think it might be a coup!” He seemed excited, but I couldn’t tell if it was because he wanted the coup to succeed or just because it was about to be a historic day at work.
I got into the studio, where the host and tech worker seemed to know even less than I did about what was going on, though they knew the feed was down.
“Does this mean I’m not going to get paid next week?” the host wondered out loud.
After I got settled in the interview chair, I realized they hadn’t yet heard the coup rumors. It was me, the first time guest, that told them about the possible coup, not their co-workers.
Then, somehow, we managed to forget about all the chaos in Turkey and talked about Mike Pence for at least three minutes.
Once we were done, the host thanked me for my time, and I left the studio. “If this airs, you’ll be on tomorrow,” the studio manager said, with a big emphasis on “if.” I asked him if there was any new information from Turkey, but there wasn’t. CNN hadn’t yet switched from covering Nice to mention Turkey.
We chatted a little longer about what might be happening in Turkey, then I shook his hand, wished him luck and went on my way.
And that’s what happened the time I was in a Turkish TV studio when an attempted Turkish coup started.
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
