Evaluation of General Sources

The controversy I researched about relates to the recent bombing in Istanbul. This is Turkey’s biggest touristic destination, and has potentially led to great economic loss for all of Turkey because of this chaos. Both articles highlight the outcomes of the recent event in more detail.

Ozgur, Deniz, "Istanbul City Marine". 7/14/2015 via pixabay

Public Domain Dedication License

First Article:

This article comes from CNN, explaining the details about the event, what experts and locals have said, and the future outcomes of the horrific event.

URl: The url ends with .com which is the most common domain name. Although this is common among most sites on the internet, this does not stop CNN’s status as being a major news broadcaster which many read from. It would be more credible however for scientific research if a source was .gov or .org, as these sites are government owned or a professional organization.

Author: For this article there are multiple authors who have helped form this report. To learn more about the writer’s credibility, viewers can click on the author’s name and are presented with a new window to read more about the writer. While looking at the author of this article, I learnt that the author (Atika Shubert), is a award winning CNN correspondent who reports in Europe,  the Middle East and Asia.

Last Updated: The website gives information as to when it was last updated. This was at 3:58pm ET, Wednesday, January 13, 2016. The article does not seem out of date and videos relating to the story are still functioning and shared within the article’s page. Not only are these videos working still, there are also other stories shared which relate to this article.

Purpose: The purpose of this text is to inform readers about the bombing in Istanbul’s most popular touristic district. It is clear that the article is trying to provide readers information about the context of the event with detailed facts and figures such as a videos, pictures, number of suspects, number of deaths, number of people wounded and what government officials have stated.

Graphics: Graphics are presented in the article with a image gallery of Istanbul during the bombing. Videos showing live footage from where the event took place, google earth display of where the explosion was located, and a live reporter at the scene of where the chaos took place are also examples of what graphics can be seen in the article.

Position on Subject: There does seem to be some bias as to who CNN writes is the cause of the explosions. CNN focuses greatly on the fact that it was ISIS by using the Turkish government and officials claims that ISIS did these attacks. CNN shows a weakness in the article by not considering that there is other possibles groups behind the bombing.

Links: In terms of links, CNN provides further readings to the story by referring readers to their Turkish version of CNN with the CNN Turk hyperlink. CNN also considered how it’s audience may not be familiar with certain characters, places, sites, organizations, and terms in the story, and have consequently included hyperlinks to help the readers understanding on some terms.

Second Article:

This article is from BBC, explaining, analyzing and discussing the outcomes from the recent chaotic event in Istanbul.

URL: Although the url ends with .com, this does not hide the fact that BBC is a highly credible source. BBC is one of the largest news sources, providing trust worthy information worldwide, which I have always read from daily.

Author: In terms of an author, I could not find a specific writer of the article. However, BBC is arguably the most reliable and credible news source currently.

Last Updated: Although the article was last updated on the 12^th of January 2016, it still provides a good summary about the main important points of the story. It is highly possible that this article will be or is currently out of date and that there are more accurate and newer details revealed about the bombing.

Purpose: It is evident that the purpose of the article is to provide readers a clear and detailed understanding of the recent bombing in Istanbul’s popular touristic destination. Therefore, this BBC article is clearly meant to inform it’s audience, providing images, statements by government officials, google earth images locating the bombing, and other facts and figures. These different forms of information give a greater understanding of the story for readers, which is the intent of a informative article. 

Graphics: There are many different graphics shown throughout that article. This includes images showing the state of Istanbul after the explosions and a geographic image of the district via google earth. Additionally, video footage of Istanbul is shown along with statements made by Turkey’s president Erdogan, who announces his plans to prevent further terrorism occurring.

Position on subject: Compared to CNN, BBC is much more balanced. It strictly provides information about what happened and what others think. BBC does not solemnly consider one side of the conflict as BBC writes towards the end about the speculation of who was behind the bombing. BBC informs readers about other terrorist groups such as the PKK who have grown in power.

Links: The article provides links with further reading, relating to the story. This includes articles discussing about other Middle Eastern groups which Turkey has relations with, as well as the bombing of nearby city Ankara in recent events.