Examination of earthquake news in the context of crisis reporting: The example of 2020 İzmir Earthquake

With the digitalization of the media and the globalization of the world, any event that takes place in one place attracts the attention and curiosity of the world community at the local, national and international levels and can affect them positively or negatively. One of these impacts is crises, which can occur at any time and for any reason. The reporters who convey the crisis to the public can be called crisis reporters. Crisis reporters who satisfy people's interest, curiosity and information in times of crisis, communicate the crisis to people and share the initial information with the public occupy a very important position. This study discusses the concept of crisis in terms of journalism, discusses the relationship between the earthquake and the media, and focuses on the crisis coverage of the İzmir Earthquake on October 30, 2020. The scope of the study, which was limited to the period between October 30, 2020 and November 30, 2020, included 15 different media institutions from 3 channels. In the study, Sabah, Hürriyet, Sözcü, Turkey, Milliyet newspapers were selected; TV media Fox TV, Show TV, Kanal D, Star TV, TRT 1 main news bulletins; Internet news sites were selected as Ensonhaber.com, Habertürk.com, Haberler.com, Haber7.com, Internethaber.com. The news about Izmir earthquake published in the mentioned media institutions are analyzed by the method of quantitative content analysis. Although the channels where the earthquake news are published are different, the study has found that the titles such as the frequency of publishing the news, the actors in the news and the main topics of the news are similar.