Media entities and journalists have autonomously crafted ethical standards, sidestepping the necessity for legal oversight, and have implemented various mechanisms to ensure adherence to these standards. Media self-regulation encompasses these editorial principles and frameworks, including press councils, ombudsmen, and reader representation, all aimed at upholding these standards.  This study employs semi-structured interviews, a qualitative research method, to delve into the systemic issues surrounding media self-regulation in Turkey.  By utilizing this interview technique, the study aims to mitigate individual biases stemming from social pressures and conformity, thereby eliciting comprehensive and accurate insights from participants. This technique, commonly employed to explore individuals' knowledge, thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors across diverse subjects and their underlying motivations, also proves adept at uncovering both surface-level and profound meanings of words. The universe of the study comprises journalists, columnists, and reader representatives with experience in professional journalism organizations and media self-regulatory bodies in Turkey, both past and present.  Purposive sampling, a non-probability technique enabling the selection of individuals most pertinent to the study objectives, stands as one of the predominant sampling methods in qualitative research. For this study, 11 individuals—comprising journalists, columnists, and reader representatives with experience in professional journalism organizations and media self-regulatory structures in Turkey, both current and former—were selected using purposive sampling.  These individuals were contacted via email and phone, resulting in four affirmative responses to the interview request. During November and December 2023, face-to-face interviews were conducted with Sibel Güneş, Faruk Bildirici, Belma Akçura, and Celal Toprak, who participated in the study. During the interviews, participants were engaged with open-ended questions designed to unveil the challenges surrounding media self-regulation in Turkey. The results from the study indicate that media self-regulatory frameworks and professional organizations, including the press council, journalists' association, and ombudsman/reader representation, struggle to fulfill their self-regulatory mandates effectively. In Turkey, the media landscape, along with professional organizations, is entrenched in ideological conflicts. This environment, serving as a primary barrier to journalist unity, exacerbates divisions within professional bodies and self-regulatory structures. The Press Council, one of the most important of these self-regulatory structures, has not been sufficiently adopted by both the press and the society, and the Council has not been fully supported by journalists. This shows that the concept of media self-regulation has not been sufficiently internalized by journalists, and that media members do not want to subject themselves to the 'supervision' and sanctions of any organization, even by their colleagues. Ombudsman/reader representation practice, which is another self-regulatory method, has not been successful in Turkey. Journalists participating in the study attributed the failure of reader representation practices to several factors, including interference and pressure from media ownership, reluctance among journalists to embrace criticism, and the divisive nature of polarized public opinion, which pressures journalists to take sides and hampers independent reporting.  Another issue that participants highlighted is a lack of social responsibility awareness and a robust ethical understanding among journalists. The rapid advancement of new media technologies has introduced a lack of regulation in news broadcasting, presenting novel challenges to traditional journalistic ethics and self-regulatory mechanisms. This underscores the necessity for addressing media self-regulation within a comprehensive framework that encompasses all forms of media.