News and Information Literacy Description

News and Information Literacy Description

Bombing attack in the southern province of Gaziantep was the most severe attack in Turkey in 2016.The suicide attack that happened on a Saturday evening on the 21 of august in a wedding party, took lives of about 50 people. There have been blames of the attack on the ISIS organization. The explosion had left many running into the nearby streets for the fear of their life. Some of the witnesses confirmed that there was so much blood all over and most women and children had lost their lives. The attack raised concern from various heads of states condemning the act and terming it to be barbaric. Turkey’s president strongly condemned the act by saying that the terrorists would not succeed in their acts and people should not divide in terms of region and ethnic grounds. The suicide attack in Turkey took place two months after a bombing which had left around 40 people dead. The bombing had taken place in Istanbul airport. Through an evaluation basis of news sources on the standard level of given information, various criteria are used.

Accuracy is the measurement of findings or rather a result giving a real value. Accuracy gives the degree of findings to some sort of truth. The measurement and results should be exact to the ones already known. The quantity of the result should be at least close to the exact results. Accuracy in media reflects the exact results of an event. The findings in the news have some sort of real and true values. The findings may not be exactly the way it was perceived but closer to the real values. In the case of Kiper’s reporter on the Turkey bombing, the reporter states that at least 51 people have lost their lives and closer to 70 people were injured. This finding gives some truth to the results as the statement gives out numbers. However, Aljazeera reports that scores were injured. The report does not give an exact value of how many people were wounded during the attack. This report shows that there is no element of accuracy in the article on the coverage of the event (Kiper, 2016).

Kiper's article gives accurate information on the events of the bombing attack. The report covers the people who are wounded including the bride and the groom. On the other hand, Aljazeera reports that only the groom is wounded while the bride is not hurt (Aljazeera, 2016). The information is therefore not accurate in the Aljazeera news source. Accuracy relates to honesty, easy to understand without any hidden contents. Accuracy in media evaluation gives the readers the privilege to access information that is clear without secrets. The information provided is usually open and easily understood by the audience. Both sources have similar accuracy elements in their coverage of the event such as the bombing taking place in Gaziantep province, the date of the bombing attack, the ceremony where the attack bombing had taken place and the group behind the attack. In both news sources, Kiper and Aljazeera, the reports clearly states that the attack was bomb based and gives the number of lives lost. It clearly cover in its articles that the attack was aimed at disturbing the peace of the country. Also, both reports give information on the group behind the attack without secreting it which is the ISIS.

The second criteria used for media outlets evaluation is biasness. Bias means being unfair. It’s the state of being unfair to someone or a group of people and be in side to the other party. It is the state of giving judgments which are discriminatory in any way to the concerned parties. The term refers to having a preference in something against the other. A person who is biased tend to take sides and be in favor of others may be because they feel that their opinions are the correct ones. Biasness shows actions of supporting another person against the other party. Both Kiper and Aljazeera reports on the sentiments from the Turkey authorities on the attack. However, there is little covered on the bomb attack victims families and progress of the injured victims. Large volume of their reports lies on the government side. This shows some form of biasness in both news sources on their coverage of the event. The criteria bring out the concern of preferring when judging and treating parties unfairly discriminating one of the parties. Media outlets should comprise of this aspect when giving information. For example in the case of Aljazeera report, the content is biased because Aljazeera depicts a discriminatory nature to one of the fighting parties; the nation and the terrorists. Similarly, Kiper's article shows a form of discriminatory judgments on the event of the Turkey bomb attack. Both reports display a biasness stand on one of the parties involved. The news sources have their own preference stand on the parties involved in the whole event.

Context is also one of the criterions used in media evaluation. Context means the main ideas that comprise a report. It’s a statement that can be easily be understood by the readers. Context consists of major ideas of an event that gives the whole passage a meaning. This aspect is clearly brought out in the two sources when they both relate the attack to a bombing base. This gives the whole idea of the roots of the attack. In the case of Kiper's report, the article gives some feature of contextual nature in that the content gives the exact information readers want to know. It is perfect in that it is clear and does not interfere or compromise the events of the attack. Kiper report information of the event just the way they happened. Aljazeera's report shows a contextual nature in the coverage of the event. Information is compromised when it states that only the groom is wounded but the bride is not hurt. The reports also cover on the sentiments of the attack being on terrorism claims and the aim of the attack being dividing the nation due to religious grounds. This coverage by the reports in their articles shows that there is a contextual element in media outlets.

Both news sources, Kiper and Aljazeera coverage on the Turkey suicide bomb has aspects of the standard level of media outlet reports. Context, biasness and accuracy characteristics are covered in the Kiper's article and Aljazeera's news reports on the child Turkey bomber. These aspects display the nature in which media sources give information. Accuracy is the main characteristic that is common between the two news sources; Kiper's article and Aljazeera news. This is because all the articles incorporate aspects of honesty with no secret information on the coverage of the Turkey bombing attack. Evaluation of media outlets is important especially in the use of accuracy criteria to measure the quality standard of the given information. Kiper's article best meet the accuracy criteria as it gives exact figures concerning the event.

References

Al Jazeera (2016). Turkey: Suicide bomber kills more than 50 at wedding. Retrieved from http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/08/injured-blast-hits-wedding-hall-gaziantep-160820204150494.html

Kiper, C. (2016). Child suicide bomber at Turkishwedding left at least 51 dead, 70 wounded in massacre. Retrieved from http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/turkey-blames-isil-for-wedding-party-bombing-that-left-50-dead