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YEREVAN PRESS CLUB WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
JANUARY 11-17, 2013
HIGHLIGHTS:
YPC PRESENTED INTERIM REPORT (OCTOBER 1 - DECEMBER 15, 2012) ON MONITORING
OF ARMENIAN BROADCAST MEDIA COVERAGE OF RA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS IN 2013
"DIFFERENT OPINION" - VIDEOBLOG OF YEREVAN PRESS CLUB
LEGAL ACTION BROUGHT FOR STATEMENTS, PUBLISHED MORE THAN 9 YEARS AGO
NCTR RELEASED METHODOLOGY OF THE MONITORING ON THE ENSURING EQUAL CONDITIONS
FOR ALL CANDIDATES TO RA PRESIDENT BY BROADCAST MEDIA
IDC OPINION ON COURT CASE OF TIGRAN TERTERIAN VERSUS FOUNDER OF "168 HOURS"
NEWSPAPER
YPC PRESENTED INTERIM REPORT (OCTOBER 1 - DECEMBER 15, 2012) ON MONITORING
OF ARMENIAN BROADCAST MEDIA COVERAGE OF RA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS IN 2013
On January 16, 2013 in Yerevan, at Henaran Club YPC presented the interim
report (October 1 - December 15, 2012) on the first stage of monitoring the
Armenian broadcast media coverage of RA presidential elections in 2013.
THE MONITORING of Armenian broadcast media coverage of RA presidential
elections in 2013 is implemented by Yerevan Press Club. Assistance to this
research is provided by OSCE Office in Yerevan within the framework of the
project "Support to Two Electoral Cycles in Armenia", financed by the
European Union. The monitoring is conducted within two stages: the first
stage covered the period of October 1 - December 15, 2012 (ahead of
pre-election promotion); the second stage will cover the period of the
official election campaign.
THE RESEARCH included 6 national TV channels - the First Channel of the
Public Television of Armenia (H1), "Armenia", "Yerkir Media", "Kentron",
Second Armenian TV Channel (H2), "Shant"; one Yerevan TV channel - "ArmNews"
(the only broadcaster in Armenia that has a specific license of a news
channel), as well as Public Radio of Armenia and "ArmRadio FM 107" radio
channel.
On the first stage of the monitoring of the presidential elections coverage
on the abovementioned TV and radio channels, all programmes of the evening
airtime were studied (from 18:00 to 01:00), excluding political, commercial
and social advertising. In the news/news and comment programmes all the
cases of appearances of representatives of executive power or political
parties were recorded; in discussion programmes ("guest in the studio"
format) all guests were recorded, and in all programmes references to
potential presidential candidates were recorded (including the attitude to
these candidates in the context of their possible advancement).
Monitoring of the Armenian broadcast media coverage of political parties and
potential presidential candidates during the period preceding the official
election campaign is conditioned by the fact that usually the unofficial
election campaign starts much sooner in Armenia than the one-month period of
official election campaign preceding the voting day. The behaviour of the
media during this period, especially the TV channels, which have the widest
audience, to a large extent, defines the preferences of the electorate.
Nevertheless, the activities of the media during the months, preceding the
start of the official election campaign, are not regulated by the electoral
legislation in any way, and only to a small extent receive attention of the
international observers. Such researches allow to understand better the role
of Armenian TV and radio channels in the political processes and to explore
the problems that exist in the regulation of the activities of the broadcast
media.
THE FIRST STAGE of the research allows us to make the conclusion that in
general the broadcast media of Armenian have not manifested discrimination
and explicit bias towards political forces and potential presidential
candidates. At the same time, it cannot be stated that they have provided
due assistance to the Armenian voters in order to help them to comprehend
the situation prior to the nomination of presidential candidates. The cause
for this was not so much the work of the broadcasters themselves, as the
specific internal-political situation in the run-up to the presidential
elections.
Only two out of six political parties, represented in the RA National
Assembly have their own candidates, and one of them acts as a self-nominated
candidate. Three out of six parliamentary political forces, including those
that have the 2nd, 3rd and 4th largest parliamentary factions, not only do
not have their own candidates, but also have not supported any of the
nominated candidates. Moreover, their position regarding the participation
in elections became clear only in the period between 55 and 67 days before
voting. Five out of eight registered presidential candidates either do not
represent any of the Armenian political parties, or represent parties, which
have not played a significant role in the political life of the country
during the recent years. Such a list of candidates, naturally, did not
contribute to a meaningful coverage of "the profiles" of the presidential
candidates in advance. Moreover, the media were focused not so much on the
suggested programmes and positions but rather on the anticipation of
decisions by leading political players regarding their nomination as
candidates.
In such a situation described by unclear intentions of political forces, the
monitored media were forced to focus on quite a large group of potential
candidates. Throughout the period from October 1 to December 15, 41 citizens
of Armenia were mentioned in the monitored media as potential candidates
(hereafter for the quantitative results of the monitoring see the YPC
Interim Report tables at http://www.ypc.am/media_research/ln/eng ). In terms
of frequency of references in the news and news/comments programmes, the
candidates who were later registered as candidates occupied respectively the
1st place (President of Armenia Serzh Sargsian), 4th place (leader of the
"Heritage" party Raffi Hovhannisian), 7th (specialist of epic poetry Vardan
Sedrakian), 8th place (leader of "National Self-Determination" Union Paruyr
Hayrikian), 19th place (leader of the "Freedom" party Hrant Bagratian), 25th
place (former minister of foreign affairs of Mountainous Karabagh Arman
Melikian), and 28th place (leader of the party "National Accord" Aram
Harutyunian) in the list. The eighth candidate Andrias Ghukasian has not
appeared as a potential candidate at all before December 15th.
It is worth noting that in the second half of the studied period (November
21 - December 15) the leader in terms of frequency of appearances among the
potential candidates was the leader of "Prosperous Armenia" party Gagik
Tsarukian, whose name ultimately did not appear on the list of candidates
for the post of the head of state.
Of all the references to potential candidates in the air those 8 that will
ultimately take part in the struggle for the presidential seat, received
only 43.0%. Moreover, in the second half of the period studied (November 21
- December 15) this index was even lower, 38.6%, even though it would be
logical to expect that as the elections were getting closer, the situation
would have become more clear.
Roughly, a similar picture was observed in terms of appearances of the
parties in news programmes and analysis/discussion programmes.
Representatives of those parties, which by the time of registration had
decided who their candidates were, appeared in the air two times less
frequently (41.1 %) than those who did not support any of the candidates.
In other words, the major part of broadcasters' attention received by
potential candidates was received by those who later were not nominated. To
a certain extent this can be explained by specific interest of the media
towards those parties and politicians, who were not able to make a decision
regarding participation in the elections. Whatever the reasons, as a
consequence of the situation that emerged, the role of the media in
preparing the audience, i.e. the citizens of Armenia to the elections, was
limited in October-December 2012.
THE LARGEST AMOUNT OF ATTENTION to internal political life within the given
period was given by "ArmNews", followed by Public Radio of Armenia, and TV
channels "Kentron" and "Yerkir Media". The least amount of attention was
given by "Shant" and "Armenia" TV channels. Second Armenian TV Channel and
the First Channel of PTA occupied a place closer to the bottom part of the
table of "political activeness" of the media studied. Taking into account
that 6 out of 7 channels studied (except "ArmNews") have similar
broadcasting licenses, the differences in the quantitative indexes of their
attention to pre-election processes (especially between "Yerkir Media" and
"Shant"), are manifestation of the fact that there are problems in the field
of regulation of the broadcasting sphere in Armenia.
Five political forces were in the centre of attention of Armenian
broadcasters: Republican Party of Armenia (RPA), "Prosperous Armenia" party,
Armenian National Congress (ANC), Armenian Revolutionary Federation-
Dashnaktsutyun (ARF) and "Heritage" party. The sixth political force,
represented in the Armenian parliament, "Orinats Yerkir" party, received
substantially less attention than the leading five did. Various degrees of
attention to parliamentary parties can be explained by the level of
expectation of interesting developments in the electoral behaviour of the
parties.
The distribution of attention towards the above-mentioned five parties can
be described as relatively balanced. At the same time, the frequent
appearances of representatives of executive authorities in news programmes
and news/comments programmes (6, 337 times against 4.874 times of
appearances of representatives of all parties altogether), is a sign of
information advantage of the ruling coalition before the elections.
Armenia's incumbent president Serzh Sargsian was mentioned more often than
other potential candidates are. He was the leader both in news/news/comments
programmes (565 references), as well as in discussion (42) and other
programmes (23). In terms of cumulative sum of appearances, he was followed
by leader of "Prosperous Armenia" party Gagik Tsarukian (436, 32 and 5
respectively). Then "Heritage" leader Raffi Hovhannisian (284, 32 and 14)
comes. Armenia's first president Levon Ter-Petrosian was mentioned more
often than Hovhannisian in news and news/comments programmes (288 times),
but found himself behind him in the table, due to discussion (17) and other
(9) programmes. Former minister of foreign affairs Vartan Oskanian was
mentioned in programmes of the above-mentioned types 162, 13 and 2 times
respectively. Armenia's second president Robert Kocharian - 136 in news, 4 -
in news/comments and none in other programmes. Moreover, the frequency of
references to the latter two, especially Vartan Oskanian, started
diminishing during the second period of the study (November 21 - December
15). This can be explained by the focus on Gagik Tsarukian as the potential
candidate from "Prosperous Armenia" and falling interest towards other
potential candidates from that party (which also explains the more rare
references by the media to the criminal case against Vartan Oskanian, hence
the more rare references to the former head of the foreign ministry). And on
the contrary, in the end of November and first half of December references
to potential candidates Vardan Sedrakian and Paruyr Hayrikian became more
frequent. Throughout the studied period they were mentioned 71 (58, 4 and 9)
and 66 (56, 7 and 3) times respectively. Moreover, the attention to the
personality of Vardan Sedrakian was to a large extent consequence of the
fact that he became a peculiar symbol of nomination of previously unknown
personalities as candidates for the presidential post, which is quite
widespread in this campaign.
According to the amount of statements for and against their candidacies in
the period studied, Serzh Sargsian, Raffi Hovhannisian and Levon
Ter-Petrosian were distinguished. However, if in case of the first two
media, they mostly reflected supportive statements, while in case of the
first president negative attitude was more frequent in the air: in case of
Sargsian - 61 for and 9 against, in case of Raffi Hovannisian - 28 and 1, in
case of Levon Ter-Petrosian 4 and 18. Support to the nomination of the
incumbent President was manifested mostly by Public Radio of Armenia,
"ArmRadio", Second Armenian TV channel and "ArmNews". Favourable attitude to
the leader of "Heritage" was reflected in the air of "ArmNews" and Public
Radio. Statements against the candidacy of the first president were most
frequent on "ArmRadio".
Highest degree of neutrality, judging from the number of statements
for/against a certain candidacy was manifested by "Shant" and First Channel
of PTA. In that respect, "Armenia" TV channel is close to them. It is
characteristic that the most neutral coverage was observed on the
broadcasters who manifested relatively weak interest to the pre-election
situation in general.
THE STUDY OF THE LIST OF PARTICIPANTS of the discussion programmes, "guest
in the studio" format during the first stage of the monitoring, allows
making a preliminary conclusion that the pre-election discussions have so
far not become a priority for the majority of the media studied. In those
cases when they actually referred to the presidential elections, they tried
to provide opportunities for expressing various positions. However, the
stress was made on the forecast of the political situation development and
circumstantial conflicts, rather than on urgent issues and content of the
upcoming campaign. Probably, the only exception is provided by "Yerkir
Media" and "ArmRadio", which time after time raised issues that the public
expects to be solved by the future head of state.
The full YPC Interim Report for October 1 - December 15, 2012, as well as
the previous report for October 1 - November 20, 2012 are available at
http://www.ypc.am/media_research/ln/eng.
"DIFFERENT OPINION" - VIDEOBLOG OF YEREVAN PRESS CLUB
Since end-December, 2012, Yerevan Press Club has launched the videoblog,
"Different Opinion". The five issues of the videoblog, released by now on
http://ypcvideoblog.wordpress.com, have been dealing with the acute problems
within the Armenian civil society. The videoblog is produced under the
"Alternative Resources in Media" project
(http://www.facebook.com/mediaproject), supported by USAID.
LEGAL ACTION BROUGHT FOR STATEMENTS, PUBLISHED MORE THAN 9 YEARS AGO
On January 9, 2013, the court of general jurisdiction of Kentron and
Nork-Marash administrative districts of Yerevan started hearing the suit of
former convict Razmik Abrahamian (sentenced for sexual assault against
minors) versus the founders of "Aravot" ("Aravot Oratert" LLC), and
"Haykakan Zhamanak" ("Dareskizb" LLC) dailies . The reason for bringing the
legal action were the articles, published by "Aravot" on September 26, 2003
and "Haykakan Zhamanak" on September 5, 2003. According to Razmik
Abrahamian, the articles described him negatively, while presenting the
court trial on his case. The plaintiff demands 2 mln AMD (about $ 5,000) as
moral damage compensation for libel and insult from each of the respondents.
On November 5, 2012, the court took the lawsuit into consideration, even
though the contested articles were published 9 years ago. The court
proceeded from the fact that in his suit, Razmik Abrahamian had indicated
that he was in prison for all these years and had no opportunity to
challenge the materials at court.
At the session of January 9, 2013, the respondents made a motion to close
the case due to the expiration of time limits for filling a defamation suit.
The next court session is assigned on February 25.
NCTR RELEASED METHODOLOGY OF THE MONITORING ON THE ENSURING EQUAL CONDITIONS
FOR ALL CANDIDATES TO RA PRESIDENT BY BROADCAST MEDIA
On December 27, 2012, the National Commission on Television and Radio (NCTR)
released the methodology on monitoring the ensuring of equal conditions for
candidates to RA President by the Armenian TV and radio companies during the
official electoral campaign (January 21 - February 16, 2013). The NCTR
conducts the monitoring in compliance with the RA Electoral Code. The
results of the monitoring and NCTR conclusions are published and presented
to the Central Electoral Commission on the 10th and 20th days of the
official campaign (e.g. on January 30 and February 9, 2013), as well as two
days before the announcement of the official ballot results (February 23,
2013).
The methodology particularly presumes scanning of the TV and radio programs,
studying the information, provided by the broadcasters or received from the
presidential candidates, state bodies, public and international
organizations, as well as analyzing the media materials reporting on
violations of the electoral legislation by the broadcasters.
During the monitoring of paid and free airtime, allocated to presidential
candidates for pre-election promotion, NCTR will asses: the invariability of
tariffs, announced by broadcasters for political advertising throughout the
whole official campaign; the broadcasters' compliance with the
non-discrimination principle, when allocating air and time for broadcasting
promotional materials; the lawfulness of arguments, provided for the denial
of airtime for broadcasting promotional materials.
NCTR will also track the broadcasters' compliance with other legislative
provisions:
- the ban imposed on employees of TV and radio companies, registered as
presidential candidates, to cover the electoral campaign or host any program
(it is to be noted that one of the eight presidential candidates is Andrias
Ghukasian, the Director of Radio "Hay", Ed. Note);
- the obligation of unbiased and factual reporting on promotional events, as
well as the requirement to respect the principles of equality and
non-discrimination towards all the candidates on all news and current affair
programs;
- respect the provisions of Article 22 of RA Electoral Code, while
reporting on the activities of candidates, who hold political,
discretionary, civil offices. The Article obliges these candidates not to
use the office to their advantage;
- the providing of equal conditions for airtime allotment to all
presidential candidates;
- the ensuring of journalistic impartiality on programs hosting any
presidential candidate, or his/her representative;
- the ban on any presence of promotional elements (reference to candidates,
their activities, pre-election platforms, calls on voting "for" or
"against", etc.), as well as demonstration of the candidates' slogans on
programs not covering the elections (films, video clips, audio tapes,
commercial advertising, etc.);
- the compliance with legislative requirements while publishing/releasing
survey results on the candidates' ratings, including compliance with the ban
on releasing the survey results before the closure of electoral precincts;
- the compliance with the ban on broadcasting any promotional material on
the ballot day and the day preceding it;
The full version of the NCTR monitoring methodology is available in Armenian
at http://www.tvradio.am/?page_id=3743.
IDC OPINION ON COURT CASE OF TIGRAN TERTERIAN VERSUS FOUNDER OF "168 HOURS"
NEWSPAPER
On December 27, 2012, the Information Disputes Council released an opinion
on the court case of Tigran Terterian, student of No.2 high school of
Etchmiadzin, versus the founder of "168 Hours" newspaper, "168 Hours" LLC,
and its correspondent Marineh Martirosian. As we have reported, the reason
for the civil action was the article, "Director Sued the Ministry of
Education and Science", published by "168 Hours" on May 26-27, 2011. The
article told the story about the dismissal of the School's Head, Susanna
Nazarian, which had provoked public attention. It presented critical
opinions about the director, such as "according to the residents of
Etchmiadzin, the son of the former director has set the school's document
archive on fire, lately". The plaintiff demanded refuting the information,
discrediting their honor and dignity, and 2 mln AMD (about $ 5,200), as
compensation for the damage caused by defamation. On July 15, 2011, the
court of general jurisdiction of Kentron and Nork-Marash administrative
districts of Yerevan took the lawsuit into consideration. The hearings
started on November 8, 2011. On April 13, 2012 the court draw-out the suit
of Tigran Terterian as unjustified.
According to the Information Disputes Council, since the contested material,
reporting about the arson of the school's document archive by Tigran
Terterian, lacks any factual data, it is not realistic to provide any
objective legal assessment. Thus, the IDC believes that the court should
have clarified whether the information was based on facts or on abstract
hypotheses. The court's conclusion on the present case, according to which
the journalist used the information received from the public, and is thus
exempt from any liability, runs counter the clarifications of the RA
Cassation Court about the proper source of information, the IDC stresses.
The reference to "the residents of Etchmiadzin" used in this article is
vague, and such a "position" may allow for publication of any information
about a person, the IDC notes.
The full opinion of the Information Disputes Council is available in
Armenian and in English at http://ypc.am/expert/ln/eng.
When reprinting or using the information above, reference to the Yerevan
Press Club is required.
You are welcome to send any comment and feedback about the Newsletter to:
[email protected]
Subscription for the Newsletter is free. To subscribe or unsubscribe from
this mailing list, please send a message to: [email protected]
Editor of YPC Newsletter - Elina POGHOSBEKIAN
____________________________________________
Yerevan Press Club
9B, Ghazar Parpetsi str.
0002, Yerevan, Armenia
Tel.: (+ 374 10) 53 00 67; 53 35 41; 53 76 62
Fax: (+374 10) 53 56 61
E-mail: [email protected]
Web Site: www.ypc.am
JANUARY 11-17, 2013
HIGHLIGHTS:
YPC PRESENTED INTERIM REPORT (OCTOBER 1 - DECEMBER 15, 2012) ON MONITORING
OF ARMENIAN BROADCAST MEDIA COVERAGE OF RA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS IN 2013
"DIFFERENT OPINION" - VIDEOBLOG OF YEREVAN PRESS CLUB
LEGAL ACTION BROUGHT FOR STATEMENTS, PUBLISHED MORE THAN 9 YEARS AGO
NCTR RELEASED METHODOLOGY OF THE MONITORING ON THE ENSURING EQUAL CONDITIONS
FOR ALL CANDIDATES TO RA PRESIDENT BY BROADCAST MEDIA
IDC OPINION ON COURT CASE OF TIGRAN TERTERIAN VERSUS FOUNDER OF "168 HOURS"
NEWSPAPER
YPC PRESENTED INTERIM REPORT (OCTOBER 1 - DECEMBER 15, 2012) ON MONITORING
OF ARMENIAN BROADCAST MEDIA COVERAGE OF RA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS IN 2013
On January 16, 2013 in Yerevan, at Henaran Club YPC presented the interim
report (October 1 - December 15, 2012) on the first stage of monitoring the
Armenian broadcast media coverage of RA presidential elections in 2013.
THE MONITORING of Armenian broadcast media coverage of RA presidential
elections in 2013 is implemented by Yerevan Press Club. Assistance to this
research is provided by OSCE Office in Yerevan within the framework of the
project "Support to Two Electoral Cycles in Armenia", financed by the
European Union. The monitoring is conducted within two stages: the first
stage covered the period of October 1 - December 15, 2012 (ahead of
pre-election promotion); the second stage will cover the period of the
official election campaign.
THE RESEARCH included 6 national TV channels - the First Channel of the
Public Television of Armenia (H1), "Armenia", "Yerkir Media", "Kentron",
Second Armenian TV Channel (H2), "Shant"; one Yerevan TV channel - "ArmNews"
(the only broadcaster in Armenia that has a specific license of a news
channel), as well as Public Radio of Armenia and "ArmRadio FM 107" radio
channel.
On the first stage of the monitoring of the presidential elections coverage
on the abovementioned TV and radio channels, all programmes of the evening
airtime were studied (from 18:00 to 01:00), excluding political, commercial
and social advertising. In the news/news and comment programmes all the
cases of appearances of representatives of executive power or political
parties were recorded; in discussion programmes ("guest in the studio"
format) all guests were recorded, and in all programmes references to
potential presidential candidates were recorded (including the attitude to
these candidates in the context of their possible advancement).
Monitoring of the Armenian broadcast media coverage of political parties and
potential presidential candidates during the period preceding the official
election campaign is conditioned by the fact that usually the unofficial
election campaign starts much sooner in Armenia than the one-month period of
official election campaign preceding the voting day. The behaviour of the
media during this period, especially the TV channels, which have the widest
audience, to a large extent, defines the preferences of the electorate.
Nevertheless, the activities of the media during the months, preceding the
start of the official election campaign, are not regulated by the electoral
legislation in any way, and only to a small extent receive attention of the
international observers. Such researches allow to understand better the role
of Armenian TV and radio channels in the political processes and to explore
the problems that exist in the regulation of the activities of the broadcast
media.
THE FIRST STAGE of the research allows us to make the conclusion that in
general the broadcast media of Armenian have not manifested discrimination
and explicit bias towards political forces and potential presidential
candidates. At the same time, it cannot be stated that they have provided
due assistance to the Armenian voters in order to help them to comprehend
the situation prior to the nomination of presidential candidates. The cause
for this was not so much the work of the broadcasters themselves, as the
specific internal-political situation in the run-up to the presidential
elections.
Only two out of six political parties, represented in the RA National
Assembly have their own candidates, and one of them acts as a self-nominated
candidate. Three out of six parliamentary political forces, including those
that have the 2nd, 3rd and 4th largest parliamentary factions, not only do
not have their own candidates, but also have not supported any of the
nominated candidates. Moreover, their position regarding the participation
in elections became clear only in the period between 55 and 67 days before
voting. Five out of eight registered presidential candidates either do not
represent any of the Armenian political parties, or represent parties, which
have not played a significant role in the political life of the country
during the recent years. Such a list of candidates, naturally, did not
contribute to a meaningful coverage of "the profiles" of the presidential
candidates in advance. Moreover, the media were focused not so much on the
suggested programmes and positions but rather on the anticipation of
decisions by leading political players regarding their nomination as
candidates.
In such a situation described by unclear intentions of political forces, the
monitored media were forced to focus on quite a large group of potential
candidates. Throughout the period from October 1 to December 15, 41 citizens
of Armenia were mentioned in the monitored media as potential candidates
(hereafter for the quantitative results of the monitoring see the YPC
Interim Report tables at http://www.ypc.am/media_research/ln/eng ). In terms
of frequency of references in the news and news/comments programmes, the
candidates who were later registered as candidates occupied respectively the
1st place (President of Armenia Serzh Sargsian), 4th place (leader of the
"Heritage" party Raffi Hovhannisian), 7th (specialist of epic poetry Vardan
Sedrakian), 8th place (leader of "National Self-Determination" Union Paruyr
Hayrikian), 19th place (leader of the "Freedom" party Hrant Bagratian), 25th
place (former minister of foreign affairs of Mountainous Karabagh Arman
Melikian), and 28th place (leader of the party "National Accord" Aram
Harutyunian) in the list. The eighth candidate Andrias Ghukasian has not
appeared as a potential candidate at all before December 15th.
It is worth noting that in the second half of the studied period (November
21 - December 15) the leader in terms of frequency of appearances among the
potential candidates was the leader of "Prosperous Armenia" party Gagik
Tsarukian, whose name ultimately did not appear on the list of candidates
for the post of the head of state.
Of all the references to potential candidates in the air those 8 that will
ultimately take part in the struggle for the presidential seat, received
only 43.0%. Moreover, in the second half of the period studied (November 21
- December 15) this index was even lower, 38.6%, even though it would be
logical to expect that as the elections were getting closer, the situation
would have become more clear.
Roughly, a similar picture was observed in terms of appearances of the
parties in news programmes and analysis/discussion programmes.
Representatives of those parties, which by the time of registration had
decided who their candidates were, appeared in the air two times less
frequently (41.1 %) than those who did not support any of the candidates.
In other words, the major part of broadcasters' attention received by
potential candidates was received by those who later were not nominated. To
a certain extent this can be explained by specific interest of the media
towards those parties and politicians, who were not able to make a decision
regarding participation in the elections. Whatever the reasons, as a
consequence of the situation that emerged, the role of the media in
preparing the audience, i.e. the citizens of Armenia to the elections, was
limited in October-December 2012.
THE LARGEST AMOUNT OF ATTENTION to internal political life within the given
period was given by "ArmNews", followed by Public Radio of Armenia, and TV
channels "Kentron" and "Yerkir Media". The least amount of attention was
given by "Shant" and "Armenia" TV channels. Second Armenian TV Channel and
the First Channel of PTA occupied a place closer to the bottom part of the
table of "political activeness" of the media studied. Taking into account
that 6 out of 7 channels studied (except "ArmNews") have similar
broadcasting licenses, the differences in the quantitative indexes of their
attention to pre-election processes (especially between "Yerkir Media" and
"Shant"), are manifestation of the fact that there are problems in the field
of regulation of the broadcasting sphere in Armenia.
Five political forces were in the centre of attention of Armenian
broadcasters: Republican Party of Armenia (RPA), "Prosperous Armenia" party,
Armenian National Congress (ANC), Armenian Revolutionary Federation-
Dashnaktsutyun (ARF) and "Heritage" party. The sixth political force,
represented in the Armenian parliament, "Orinats Yerkir" party, received
substantially less attention than the leading five did. Various degrees of
attention to parliamentary parties can be explained by the level of
expectation of interesting developments in the electoral behaviour of the
parties.
The distribution of attention towards the above-mentioned five parties can
be described as relatively balanced. At the same time, the frequent
appearances of representatives of executive authorities in news programmes
and news/comments programmes (6, 337 times against 4.874 times of
appearances of representatives of all parties altogether), is a sign of
information advantage of the ruling coalition before the elections.
Armenia's incumbent president Serzh Sargsian was mentioned more often than
other potential candidates are. He was the leader both in news/news/comments
programmes (565 references), as well as in discussion (42) and other
programmes (23). In terms of cumulative sum of appearances, he was followed
by leader of "Prosperous Armenia" party Gagik Tsarukian (436, 32 and 5
respectively). Then "Heritage" leader Raffi Hovhannisian (284, 32 and 14)
comes. Armenia's first president Levon Ter-Petrosian was mentioned more
often than Hovhannisian in news and news/comments programmes (288 times),
but found himself behind him in the table, due to discussion (17) and other
(9) programmes. Former minister of foreign affairs Vartan Oskanian was
mentioned in programmes of the above-mentioned types 162, 13 and 2 times
respectively. Armenia's second president Robert Kocharian - 136 in news, 4 -
in news/comments and none in other programmes. Moreover, the frequency of
references to the latter two, especially Vartan Oskanian, started
diminishing during the second period of the study (November 21 - December
15). This can be explained by the focus on Gagik Tsarukian as the potential
candidate from "Prosperous Armenia" and falling interest towards other
potential candidates from that party (which also explains the more rare
references by the media to the criminal case against Vartan Oskanian, hence
the more rare references to the former head of the foreign ministry). And on
the contrary, in the end of November and first half of December references
to potential candidates Vardan Sedrakian and Paruyr Hayrikian became more
frequent. Throughout the studied period they were mentioned 71 (58, 4 and 9)
and 66 (56, 7 and 3) times respectively. Moreover, the attention to the
personality of Vardan Sedrakian was to a large extent consequence of the
fact that he became a peculiar symbol of nomination of previously unknown
personalities as candidates for the presidential post, which is quite
widespread in this campaign.
According to the amount of statements for and against their candidacies in
the period studied, Serzh Sargsian, Raffi Hovhannisian and Levon
Ter-Petrosian were distinguished. However, if in case of the first two
media, they mostly reflected supportive statements, while in case of the
first president negative attitude was more frequent in the air: in case of
Sargsian - 61 for and 9 against, in case of Raffi Hovannisian - 28 and 1, in
case of Levon Ter-Petrosian 4 and 18. Support to the nomination of the
incumbent President was manifested mostly by Public Radio of Armenia,
"ArmRadio", Second Armenian TV channel and "ArmNews". Favourable attitude to
the leader of "Heritage" was reflected in the air of "ArmNews" and Public
Radio. Statements against the candidacy of the first president were most
frequent on "ArmRadio".
Highest degree of neutrality, judging from the number of statements
for/against a certain candidacy was manifested by "Shant" and First Channel
of PTA. In that respect, "Armenia" TV channel is close to them. It is
characteristic that the most neutral coverage was observed on the
broadcasters who manifested relatively weak interest to the pre-election
situation in general.
THE STUDY OF THE LIST OF PARTICIPANTS of the discussion programmes, "guest
in the studio" format during the first stage of the monitoring, allows
making a preliminary conclusion that the pre-election discussions have so
far not become a priority for the majority of the media studied. In those
cases when they actually referred to the presidential elections, they tried
to provide opportunities for expressing various positions. However, the
stress was made on the forecast of the political situation development and
circumstantial conflicts, rather than on urgent issues and content of the
upcoming campaign. Probably, the only exception is provided by "Yerkir
Media" and "ArmRadio", which time after time raised issues that the public
expects to be solved by the future head of state.
The full YPC Interim Report for October 1 - December 15, 2012, as well as
the previous report for October 1 - November 20, 2012 are available at
http://www.ypc.am/media_research/ln/eng.
"DIFFERENT OPINION" - VIDEOBLOG OF YEREVAN PRESS CLUB
Since end-December, 2012, Yerevan Press Club has launched the videoblog,
"Different Opinion". The five issues of the videoblog, released by now on
http://ypcvideoblog.wordpress.com, have been dealing with the acute problems
within the Armenian civil society. The videoblog is produced under the
"Alternative Resources in Media" project
(http://www.facebook.com/mediaproject), supported by USAID.
LEGAL ACTION BROUGHT FOR STATEMENTS, PUBLISHED MORE THAN 9 YEARS AGO
On January 9, 2013, the court of general jurisdiction of Kentron and
Nork-Marash administrative districts of Yerevan started hearing the suit of
former convict Razmik Abrahamian (sentenced for sexual assault against
minors) versus the founders of "Aravot" ("Aravot Oratert" LLC), and
"Haykakan Zhamanak" ("Dareskizb" LLC) dailies . The reason for bringing the
legal action were the articles, published by "Aravot" on September 26, 2003
and "Haykakan Zhamanak" on September 5, 2003. According to Razmik
Abrahamian, the articles described him negatively, while presenting the
court trial on his case. The plaintiff demands 2 mln AMD (about $ 5,000) as
moral damage compensation for libel and insult from each of the respondents.
On November 5, 2012, the court took the lawsuit into consideration, even
though the contested articles were published 9 years ago. The court
proceeded from the fact that in his suit, Razmik Abrahamian had indicated
that he was in prison for all these years and had no opportunity to
challenge the materials at court.
At the session of January 9, 2013, the respondents made a motion to close
the case due to the expiration of time limits for filling a defamation suit.
The next court session is assigned on February 25.
NCTR RELEASED METHODOLOGY OF THE MONITORING ON THE ENSURING EQUAL CONDITIONS
FOR ALL CANDIDATES TO RA PRESIDENT BY BROADCAST MEDIA
On December 27, 2012, the National Commission on Television and Radio (NCTR)
released the methodology on monitoring the ensuring of equal conditions for
candidates to RA President by the Armenian TV and radio companies during the
official electoral campaign (January 21 - February 16, 2013). The NCTR
conducts the monitoring in compliance with the RA Electoral Code. The
results of the monitoring and NCTR conclusions are published and presented
to the Central Electoral Commission on the 10th and 20th days of the
official campaign (e.g. on January 30 and February 9, 2013), as well as two
days before the announcement of the official ballot results (February 23,
2013).
The methodology particularly presumes scanning of the TV and radio programs,
studying the information, provided by the broadcasters or received from the
presidential candidates, state bodies, public and international
organizations, as well as analyzing the media materials reporting on
violations of the electoral legislation by the broadcasters.
During the monitoring of paid and free airtime, allocated to presidential
candidates for pre-election promotion, NCTR will asses: the invariability of
tariffs, announced by broadcasters for political advertising throughout the
whole official campaign; the broadcasters' compliance with the
non-discrimination principle, when allocating air and time for broadcasting
promotional materials; the lawfulness of arguments, provided for the denial
of airtime for broadcasting promotional materials.
NCTR will also track the broadcasters' compliance with other legislative
provisions:
- the ban imposed on employees of TV and radio companies, registered as
presidential candidates, to cover the electoral campaign or host any program
(it is to be noted that one of the eight presidential candidates is Andrias
Ghukasian, the Director of Radio "Hay", Ed. Note);
- the obligation of unbiased and factual reporting on promotional events, as
well as the requirement to respect the principles of equality and
non-discrimination towards all the candidates on all news and current affair
programs;
- respect the provisions of Article 22 of RA Electoral Code, while
reporting on the activities of candidates, who hold political,
discretionary, civil offices. The Article obliges these candidates not to
use the office to their advantage;
- the providing of equal conditions for airtime allotment to all
presidential candidates;
- the ensuring of journalistic impartiality on programs hosting any
presidential candidate, or his/her representative;
- the ban on any presence of promotional elements (reference to candidates,
their activities, pre-election platforms, calls on voting "for" or
"against", etc.), as well as demonstration of the candidates' slogans on
programs not covering the elections (films, video clips, audio tapes,
commercial advertising, etc.);
- the compliance with legislative requirements while publishing/releasing
survey results on the candidates' ratings, including compliance with the ban
on releasing the survey results before the closure of electoral precincts;
- the compliance with the ban on broadcasting any promotional material on
the ballot day and the day preceding it;
The full version of the NCTR monitoring methodology is available in Armenian
at http://www.tvradio.am/?page_id=3743.
IDC OPINION ON COURT CASE OF TIGRAN TERTERIAN VERSUS FOUNDER OF "168 HOURS"
NEWSPAPER
On December 27, 2012, the Information Disputes Council released an opinion
on the court case of Tigran Terterian, student of No.2 high school of
Etchmiadzin, versus the founder of "168 Hours" newspaper, "168 Hours" LLC,
and its correspondent Marineh Martirosian. As we have reported, the reason
for the civil action was the article, "Director Sued the Ministry of
Education and Science", published by "168 Hours" on May 26-27, 2011. The
article told the story about the dismissal of the School's Head, Susanna
Nazarian, which had provoked public attention. It presented critical
opinions about the director, such as "according to the residents of
Etchmiadzin, the son of the former director has set the school's document
archive on fire, lately". The plaintiff demanded refuting the information,
discrediting their honor and dignity, and 2 mln AMD (about $ 5,200), as
compensation for the damage caused by defamation. On July 15, 2011, the
court of general jurisdiction of Kentron and Nork-Marash administrative
districts of Yerevan took the lawsuit into consideration. The hearings
started on November 8, 2011. On April 13, 2012 the court draw-out the suit
of Tigran Terterian as unjustified.
According to the Information Disputes Council, since the contested material,
reporting about the arson of the school's document archive by Tigran
Terterian, lacks any factual data, it is not realistic to provide any
objective legal assessment. Thus, the IDC believes that the court should
have clarified whether the information was based on facts or on abstract
hypotheses. The court's conclusion on the present case, according to which
the journalist used the information received from the public, and is thus
exempt from any liability, runs counter the clarifications of the RA
Cassation Court about the proper source of information, the IDC stresses.
The reference to "the residents of Etchmiadzin" used in this article is
vague, and such a "position" may allow for publication of any information
about a person, the IDC notes.
The full opinion of the Information Disputes Council is available in
Armenian and in English at http://ypc.am/expert/ln/eng.
When reprinting or using the information above, reference to the Yerevan
Press Club is required.
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Editor of YPC Newsletter - Elina POGHOSBEKIAN
____________________________________________
Yerevan Press Club
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0002, Yerevan, Armenia
Tel.: (+ 374 10) 53 00 67; 53 35 41; 53 76 62
Fax: (+374 10) 53 56 61
E-mail: [email protected]
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