When it comes to get a point across to its reader base, a newspaper assumes its readers possess the minimum amount of background knowledge on a subject. However, being excessive in this regard will also cause readers familiar with the basics to lose interest, so a delicate balance must always be observed. Yet the basic principle remains: We must always be understandable to our readers.
This is an especially tricky subject for newspapers like Daily Sabah that publish in a language other than the native language of their origin country. Common knowledge for an average mainstream Turkish media reader and average Daily Sabah reader varies quite a bit, and if we try to melt them in a single pot, nuances we try to get across can easily slip through the cracks.
A similar case happened this week. On Sept. 21 a sports article by Arda Alan Işık was published with the title "Please explain this dear Şansal!" For an average Turkish reader familiar with the football scene, this title clearly refers to the years of banter between Şansal Büyüka and Erman Toroğlu. These were iconic sports commentators famous for their banter in "Maraton," which started to air in 1996.
For a foreign reader that had an interest in the television programming side of Turkish football, these two probably do not require an explanation. But for the rest, neither Büyüka nor their relationship with Toroğlu, which made the title meaningful, resonates. As this information also wasn't provided in the article itself, the wit of the title fell short on those ears.
In my correspondence with the writer of the article, he said that he indeed referred to the relationship and banter of the two prominent figures and chose a title that would catch the reader's attention. And indeed it would have if all of them were familiar with Toroğlu and Büyüka's history, but in this case giving a bit of background information in the article would have gone a long way.
We have two corrections to make this week. The first one was in the "Sufi exhibition launches near Washington" article that was published on Sept. 22. In the article, the surname of Fatma Zeynep Çilek was misspelled as "Çelik." As the mistake was repeated three times, it wasn't a typo. As soon as the matter was brought to our attention our web team edited the news article with the correct surname. As a side note, the news article was signed by Anadolu Agency, and when I checked the original from their website as of Sunday morning, the surname was still the wrong one. However, this doesn't excuse our mistake, and I would like to remind our editors that even though we can take news articles from news agencies, fact checking and proper researching is vital.
The second request for a correction came from Emma Doxiadi. She sent us a letter saying that the "Young talents to shine at SUNDANCE scenario lab" titled article, which was written by Zeynep Esra Koca, had a factual error. She complained that there was a mistake in her bio. The mistaken info in the original article was: "She [Emma Doxiadi] directed and starred in "Squirrel," which was screened at SXSW and the Berlinale in 2015. She currently lives in London."
However Squirrel was directed by Tomas Vengris as Ms. Doxiadi pointed out in her email. Our web team edited the news article and added the correct information about the director.
