TRT World has stated that it is financially and editorially independent from the Turkish government, and that its news gathering and reporting activities are just like those of other publicly-funded broadcasters around the world, with a mission to show a non-Turkish audience events from Turkey's viewpoint. However, the network has received criticism in the West for failing to meet accepted journalism ethics and standards for independence and objectivity, with some commentators calling it a mouthpiece or propaganda arm of the Erdoğan administration. According to Reporters Without Borders, Turkey in 2020 ranked 154th out of 179 countries in press freedom. In March 2020, the United States Justice Department required TRT World's Washington operation to register as an agent of the Government of Turkey, engaged in political activities, under the anti-propaganda Foreign Agents Registration Act. TRT World's arguments that it is independent were rejected by the US officials, who found that the Turkish government "exercises direction and control of TRT by regulation and oversight, and by controlling its leadership, budget, and content." Apart from some Russian and Chinese networks, other state-funded media including the Qatari-backed Al Jazeera had not been determined to be foreign-government agents. In a 2019 op-ed in the Washington Post, Middle East media expert Steven Stalinsky called TRT World "a propaganda arm of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's regime", similar to the Russian RT News network. He notes that the channel offered only enthusiastically promotional coverage of the Turkish military's Operation Peace Spring in Syria, while according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the government banned critical news coverage domestically. Stalinsky urges human rights activists, journalists, and others not to appear on and legitimize the network's shows, just as they would not appear on RT. Following the 2016 Turkish coup attempt, some journalists who had recently joined the company resigned. One of those who resigned said: "I no longer hold out any hope that this channel will become what I wanted it to become After the coup, it became very apparent that the channel had no intention of actually covering it properly, in a professional, international broadcast standard." The managing editor at the time said that he "never received a phone call from Ankara trying to frame the broadcast or give them talking points."
