Summary: On October 10, two bombs went off at a peace rally in the Turkish capital Ankara, killing nearly 100 people. Authorities were quick to issue orders on how to cover the attacks, forbidding publication of pictures of the bombs. Internet providers were reportedly told to slow down social media sites. The call for a media blackout after the attacks is symptomatic of a wider approach by the Erdogan government towards any critical media. The political situation in Turkey is particularly tense right now – the military is fighting Kurdish fighters in the southeast and authorities are having to deal with the ISIL threat across the border, and with a make-or-break election looming next month, critics say the fight to drown out opposition voices and to control the media message has intensified. Talking us through the story this week is media scholar Asli Tunc; Mehves Evin, a journalist with Diken Online; Yavuz Baydar, from the P24 independent news outlet; and Hilal Kaplan, a columnist with Sabah newspaper. Other stories on our radar this week - the Taliban in Afghanistan have threatened two privately-owned TV networks after accusing them of being American propagandists; after 450 days behind bars, Iranian authorities convict Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, but do not reveal any details of his sentence; and an Egyptian TV host airs footage of an apparent Russian airstrike against ISIL in Syria - the only problem was that the footage was from a video game. And in this week's feature, The Listening Post's Flo Phillips heads to Canada to look at the impact the oil and gas industry has on the media.
