After all of the palaver surrounding Brexit, with the right-wingers' fear of the proposed addition of countries such as Turkey to the EU due to threats of terrorism towards Britain (which I thought was just a little bit excessive), it seems their doubts may have been at least somewhat justified. After reading up on the events in Turkey over the last few years (official government website here), this story comes as just another addition to the horrific events surrounding the Turkish people.

Due to Turkey's geographical border with Syria, many terrorist threats involving Daesh/ISIS and the PKK have been prominent in any news connected to Turkey joining the EU. The Independent, a reportedly neutral news institution, have published this article commenting on the arrests of nine members of a Turkish news corporation. The paper, Cumhuriyet (translation: republic), opposes the Turkish conservative political party AKP, and have been subject to controversy in the past after they re-published cartoons from Charlie Hebdo, the French newspaper and subject of a terror attack for their negative depiction of the prophet Muhammad. The former editor-in-chief, Can Dundar, was also under appeal for revealing state secrets and fled to Germany earlier this year.

The article is vague, as Turkey has ordered a media blackout following the arrests, but from the sparse details included it seems that certain members of staff, including the head of board, are suspected of being involved in some form of terrorism, whether that be as dramatic as planning an attack or as covert as releasing prohibited information to the press. Supposedly, since then more than 700 Turkish journalists have had their press accreditation revoked, leading to thousands being left unemployed.

Turkey is already in a state of disarray, and is in no means a stable country, and an event like this should have been, in my humble opinion, far more prominent in the news due to the events it could possibly lead to - disruption in the press could lead to civil uproar and God knows what else. This story particularly interested me as so little was put out about such a significant story that I have only just come across it. This just sums up the self-centred nature of the UK media - if it's not about this country, people don't want to know.

This week's news comes from Pink News, a UK-based online newspaper targeted to the LGBT+ community. Pink News claims to take a neutral standing ground regarding politics, though promotes political candidates not based on party but on their stance on LGBT+ rights (in itself, a liberal view).

This article is written by Benjamin Butterworth, who also writes for the Independent and the Huffington Post (both neutral-left institutions). The headline reads:

Using a quote from the Mayor of London, as well as his name, draws interest to the story immediately, as any politically-savvy reader knows Khan's name and will immediately know the context of the article without any previous research. This leads to 'easy reading', while still reading something worthwhile.

In the article, Pink News uses some particularly shocking statistics, including the fact that 39% of people diagnosed with HIV last year were at a late stage of the infection, meaning that they are at serious risk of illness because of the late detection. Sourcing this information from Public Health England shows reputability, and allows interested readers to trust the news institution and therefore encourage them to read more from the sources.

The article links to others in the same vein, such as this one, also by Benjamin Butterworth, which promotes HIV testing using the notable public figures of Prince Harry and Rihanna to endorse the cause. In it, more shocking statistics are used, such as the fact that 'almost one-third of Britons think that HIV can be caught by sharing a toothbrush with someone who is infected' - this shows the lack of information surrounding sexually transmitted infections such as HIV, which Pink News wants to raise awareness for in order to keep the public (especially the LGBT+ community, as they are at a higher risk of developing the infection due to misinformation leading them to not use condoms during sex) safer.

Although I am not personally affected by the issues in the article (unlike many of my other Weekly News pieces), I am a regular reader of Pink News due to my status in the LGBT+ community*. I am also an avid follower of British politics, so to see an article joining two of my interests together made me, as well as other people like me, interested in the content. Sadiq Khan, in my opinion, is proving to be a worthy post-holder of the Mayor of London, and with such an influential figure endorsing worthwhile campaigns such as this one, to increase awareness and reduce the stigma surrounding HIV, more action may be taken by the British public as a prominent person that they trust is also supporting the cause.

*surprise! I'm bisexual!