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| 15:17:14 | 08-06-2005 | Social |

HOW CAN DEPENDENT PRESS BE RESPONSIBLE?

`The press is not free enough’, this was the answer of 500 representatives
of the Yerevan State University – lawyers, sociologists, economists,
historians, and journalists, to the question of the `National Center for ‘
about the reasons of the non-effective highlighting of corruption by Mass
Media.

The surveys found out that when it comes to corruption, the Mass Media pay
more attention to education and health fields. During today’s seminar of the
Monitoring center Education deputy Minister Artak Sahradyan said that he is
seriously concerned by the problems in the educational field. At the same
time he thinks the journalists must be responsible for their materials while
highlighting the problems present in the above mentioned field, `WE have
always had two sacred things – the church and the school, and we must be
able to preserve the most important of them – the schools’, he announced.

As for the Mass Media, RA Social Security Minister Aghvan Vardanyan was not
sure whether the journalists are always objective and responsible for their
materials, especially when there is nothing to hide from them. `But this
presupposes two-party cooperation’, said Mr. Vardanyan.

By the way, Vladimir Pryakhin, head of the OSCE Yerevan office who was
present at the seminar made an interesting note. He said that the OSCE does
not consider the Mass Media as a means of propaganda, but the projects
realize by OSCE `according to the Soviet logics have elements of
propaganda’.