[1] She graduated with a degree in international relations at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul in 1992, before going on to study in the United States after receiving a Fulbright scholarship.

[5] From the late 1990s, she hosted the Portreler (English: "portraits") series in which she interviewed notable Turkish guests, including Cem Karaca, Ahmet Kaya, Gazanfar Özcan, Cüneyt Arkın, Tarkan, Sakıp Sabancı, Hulki Aktunç, Üzeyir Garih, Avni Arbaş, Mümtaz Soysal, and Uğur Dündar.

[9] In 2015, Kabaş was arrested and tried on charges pertaining to articles and social media posts she made on Twitter concerning the 2013 corruption scandal in Turkey.

[12][11] In 2019, Kabaş was charged with insulting the president following comments made during a television appearance; she received a suspended prison sentence of 11 months.

[14] Right after this Turkish proverb Kabaş quoted a Circassian proverb in which she stated "a bull does not become a king just by entering the palace, but the palace becomes a barn" (Turkish: öküz saraya çıkınca kral olmaz, ama saray ahır olur), which was perceived to be in reference to the country's president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan; Kabaş subsequently posted the quote on her Twitter account.

[19][20] The editor of Tele1, Merdan Yanardağ, labelled Kabaş's arrest as "unacceptable" and called it an attempt by the government to "intimidate journalists, the media, and society".

[21] During an interview with NTV on 27 January, Erdoğan commented on Kabaş's arrest, stating "likening the administrative centre of the Republic of Turkey to a sty, which we call the home of the nation, is an insult to our beloved people".

[25] On 1 February 2022, 27 international groups wrote an open letter calling on the Turkish government to release Kabaş and to end judicial harassment of independent media.