NO INDEPENDENT MASS MEDIA

Azat Artsakh – Republic of Nagorno Karabakh (NKR)
June 21 2004

The training with the topic “Monitoring of the mass media during
elections” organized by the Stepanakert Press Club with the financial
assistance of the international organization “Article 19” ended. The
topic of the third day was the activity of the non-governmental
organizations before elections as well as the cooperation of the mass
media and non-governmental organizations in conducting monitoring.
Representatives of non-governmental organizations took part in
the training on the third day: chairman of the public organization
“Institute of People’s Diplomacy”, coordinator of the international
organization “Caucasian Forum” on Karabakh Irina Grigorian, chairman
of the Association for Protection of Rights of NKR Citizens Georgy
Safarian, chairman of the public organization “Tradition” Valery
Balayan. The conductors of the monitoring asked them to tell about
their experience of election monitoring. According to G. Safarian,
five Karabakh public organizations took part in the monitoring for
transparency of the NKR presidential elections in 2002. There was
only one complaint at the Association for Protection of Rights of the
Karabakh Citizens, from candidate Albert Ghazarian whom the association
assisted to send the claim to the head public prosecutor’s office
(the town public prosecutor did not accept the claim). And on the
election day no violations of the law in effect were observed. Irina
Grigorian confessed that the monitoring started late therefore the
results were not complete. However, the first and small experience
will later become important basis by all means. Mrs. Grigorian also
informed that a club of non-governmental organizations operates
in Stepanakert, which involves about 10 public organizations. The
chairman of the public organization “Tradition” Valery Balayan
mentioned that if the experience of the observer is small, the
experience of the participant in elections is rather big. The first
election to the Supreme Soviet of the newly founded NKR in 1991 was
most fair and transparent. The question of propaganda of legislative
acts in the mass media and by non-governmental organizations was
also discussed. In this connection Alexey Koshel who conducted the
training mentioned that propaganda is a rather difficult problem
which requires long-lasting and determined work. According to him,
in Ukraine the school of political analysis is established which is
called for education of a new generation of analysts. He set forth
for discussion the problems of mutual understanding of journalists
and the mass media implementing monitoring. In this reference the
organization of coalitions (temporary associations of non-governmental
organizations and the mass media), press centers whose work will
become an important source of information for the mass media. The
peculiarities of coverage of the “black PR” during the elections were
also discussed. According to Mr. Koshel, extending truth to the reader
can be the only way to fight this phenomenon rather spread both in
the West and the entire post-soviet territory. Summing up the findings
of the three-day training, Alexey Koshel said, “In fact there are no
independent mass media.” Although he thinks that the tendency of the
mass media to become independent becomes apparent day by day. And in
this process the alternative mass media play a big role. The way-out
is self-organization and financial self-sufficiency by which the mass
media may certainly achieve at least relative independence. 

SUSANNA BALAYAN