ANKARA
Anadolu Agency has published a thank you message related to its Turkish local elections coverage.
The message is as follows:
Turkey has experienced one of its most historic days; 52 million citizens went to the polls for the March 30, 2014 elections and expressed their political preferences with free will.
Elections are the hallmark of democracy.
Anadolu Agency, which has witnessed the 94-year history of our nation and people, placed its signature on yesterday’s democratic test by providing the election results to the public in a fast and reliable manner. The agency provided the results directly from the polling places for the first time in its history.
Due to the agency’s long-established reliability, 20 national and 144 local television stations, 21 national newspapers and 450 websites such as Google and MSN preferred to receive the election results from Anadolu Agency. More than 85 percent of Turkish media signed agreements with our agency for the data.
The agency published a record-breaking 3,200 news stories on election day. These accurate and impartial news stories prevented ill-intentioned persons from engaging in manipulation.
A record number of 600 videos were also serviced to our subscribers.
The most important news stories were also provided in the Arabic, English, French, Bosnian, Kurdish and Russian languages.
- Unfair attacks against AA
A smear campaign, started days in advance by some newspapers against our agency’s publication of election results, continued on election night.
After these campaigns, phone calls threatening and insulting AA poured into all our offices, particularly the Ankara and Istanbul offices.
A campaign “AA burolarını basalım” (Let’s storm AA offices) was launched on Twitter.
The fact that some politicians took the forefront in the smear campaign against AA and accused it of manipulating the elections is disappointing for Turkish politics.
Anadolu Agency is Turkey’s national news agency. It keeps an equal distance from all political parties and certainly does not practice favoritism.
As the Turkish Republic’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, wrote on the agency’s charter: “Anadolu Agency will continue making Anatolia’s voice heard across the world.”
May the elections be beneficial to our nation and our people.
englishnews@aa.com.tr
