The decision made by President Trump to withdraw American troops, previously stationed in the northeast of Syria, led to the outburst of long-lasting dispute in the Middle-East. The Turkish government, headed by President Erdogan, launched a military offensive against American supported Kurdish group. The military situation on the border between Turkey and Syria resulted in an increased flow of people, causing displacement of. thousands of people living in northeast of Syria. The situation that has caused involuntary migration of people has received global attention. However, in the conflict that concerns international community and interests of external actors, the events have been covered and interpreted from different angles. This critical review looks at the news articles published in October 2019. Each article comes from a different foreign news agency. Such selection was made to discover and analyse strengths and shortcomings in reporting, facts selection, interpretation and presentation of same event. Looking at Aljazeera, the Guardian, Russia Today and the Telegraph each news agency came with reports about the military offensive launched by Turkey which led to displacement of Kurdish population.
Since October 2019, humanitarian crisis in the northeast border of Syria received a high volume of attention, meaning that the issue was not under covered or neglected. The Telegraph issued the article about intensifying migration of Kurdish population, referring to potential threat to European countries. In bold font the article’s headline says: “Turkey’s Erdogan threatens to send ‘millions’ of refugees to Europe…”, accentuating on words “threaten”, “millions” and “refugees to Europe”. A day later, Aljazeera came up with a cover of the same event but with slight different interpretation. In contrast to the article from Business Insider, the headline of Aljazeera looked the “furious with Turkey, EU officials threaten sanctions”, presenting a different side of a story. One country, in this case Turkey, plays different role. In the western publication by the Telegraph, the Turkish government is presented as an initiator, referring to the comments of president Erdogan to send refugees to Europe. Meanwhile, despite mentioning in the article published by Aljazeera that president Recep Tayyip Erdogan “warns to send 3.6 million refugees to Europe EU nations did not back him”, it is European states which warn Turkey with sanction. Different publications have contrasting presentation of “other” in one being “Turkey” while in other “Europe”. This means that each article has different intention, setting different frame which shapes readers’ views on the same event.
The emphasis in the western publications was made on the humanitarian situation, presenting the numbers of civilian casualties which were made since the launch of the operation. In contrast, middle eastern news agency looked at the political side of the event in more details, referring to economic sanctions of European powers in response to the situation. Similar tendency was traced later in the month. The British newspaper, the Guardian, emphasised the humanitarian side of the events. Following wester sources, Russia Today looked the situation from humanitarian level, focusing on the consequences of “reverse migration” which might lead to the flow of terrorists to their homelands. Each report looks at important aspect of the event whether it is political or the humanitarian side, but none of the publications combines the two. Although the Telegraph outlines the series of actions which took place between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and Turkish military groups and what came before the offensive, first paragraphs and headlines present the reports of the civilian casualties caused by the conflict, thus attracting more attention and causes stronger feelings towards the situation. In addition, the language which was used to present the events contributed the migration of the Kurdish population from Turkey, amplifies the sensitivity of events as it was done in , the Guardian article.
Since the news publications were gathered from a range of news agencies, every article was written with different intention. Russia Today and Aljazeera presented altering role of Turkish government in comparison to the Guardian and the Telegraph despite drawing from the same source. Despite this tendency, the facts which presented the numbers of people fleeing their homes did not vary. This means that each publication was written with close attention to facts in order to avoid disinformation but only western news agencies specify the sources of humanitarian reports, including Amnesty International.
In conclusion, the reporting on the migration of Kurdish population in the northeast of Syria had its shortcomings and strength. Each report highlighted the humanitarian side of the conflict and presented clear facts but avoided referring to the political causes. The reports aimed to present a slightly different side of the event despite referring to the same sources.
