The newspaper was founded in 2010 as a successor to Anadolu'da Vakit, but later took on the name Vakit. The original Vakit had been sued for defamation by 312 generals for a 2003 editorial written by columnist Asım Yenihaber which criticised the military. Vakit lost the case, and was ordered to pay TL1.8m in 2010. Columnist Abdurrahman Dilipak had his house forcibly sold in 2009 to pay damages relating to a 2000 article.
Vakit had been charged with encouraging the 2006 Turkish Council of State shooting of a judge, which was notionally a protest against a decision blocking the appointment of a teacher wearing a headscarf as principal of a nursery school. Several months earlier, Vakit had produced a front-page headline, ‘Here are those members’, accompanied by the photographs and identities of the chief judge and three members of the 2nd Chamber of the Turkish Council of State responsible for the decision.
In May 2014, Yeni Akit sought to blame Jews in the country's recent Soma coal mine disaster that left over 300 dead. The newspaper criticized the mine's owner for having a Jewish son-in-law and "Zionist-dominated media" for distorting the story. In September 2014, Yeni Akit columnist Faruk Cose called for Turkish Jews to be taxed to pay for reconstructing buildings damaged in Gaza during Israel's Operation Protective Edge. In December 2014, the newspaper used a picture of Adolf Hitler as the centerpiece for its daily word game, and the phrase "We long for you" as the answer to the puzzle.
Anti-LGBT
In January 2012, Yeni Akit was fined by the Turkish High Court of Appeals over comments published in 2008 describing gay people as "perverts". In the aftermath of the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting the newspaper published a headline calling the victims "deviants" or "perverted", which in turn was criticized by foreign media outlets.
Censoring of women
The newspaper censors images of women in both their print and online edition by blurring part of the skin which is not allowed to show others by islam. In none of the cases, women in the shot are completely blurred out, only if a woman is naked according to rules of islam.
Targeting of journalists
In July 2012, over 200 prominent people signed a criminal complaint against Yeni Akit over its attacks on Armenian-origin journalist Ali Bayramoğlu. In August, the newspaper accused Cengiz Çandar and Hasan Cemal of supporting the PKK. In December 2012, Yeni Akit published a list of 60 journalists who supports PKK, it claimed were "terrorists and criminals". Although some people say, akit is defending the ideas of al-Qaeda, in fact Akit is against the ideas of these groups. Akit blames these groups to be guided by Salafists and does not support the methodology of Salafists.
Following his death in May 2011, Yeni Akit published a full page condolence in honor of Osama bin Laden.
Denial of Sivas Massacre
Yeni Akit published a front-page story on 23 July 2012 declaring the Sivas massacre a "19 Year Lie", claiming the victims had been killed by gunshots rather than fire on the basis of morgue photos it claimed were previously unpublished. The claims were rapidly disproven, and strongly condemned by many.
In September 2009, Vakit newspaper columnist 78-year-old Hüseyin Üzmez was convicted for sexually abusing a minor and was sentenced to 13 years in prison. Hüseyin Üzmez and the newspaper denied the allegations and insisted this was a conspiracy.
During the Gezi Park protests in Turkey, Yeni Akit published many disinformative articles. On 5 June Mustafa Durdu, a columnist at the newspaper, claimed that protestors may even have performed group sex inside Dolmabahçe Mosque. On 13 June, Yeni Akit claimed that prostitution and group sex was common at Gezi park after 2 am. They based this claim on an "anonymous journalist who saw this happening with his own eyes and told it to someone else". On 15 June, the newspaper accused supermarket chain Migros of delivering free supplies to the protestors at Gezi park. However, goods delivered to the park were bought by protestors through the supermarket's online store. On 24 August, Yeni Akit claimed that Gezi protestors were preparing for a "big provocation" during the August 30 Victory Day celebrations.
Following the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting, the newspaper published a headline calling the victims "deviant" or "perverted", which in turn was criticized by foreign media outlets.
