Freedom of press: imposed or necessary?

Boris Navasardian
President of Yerevan press club
Dear readers,

Between May 31 and June 7, 2005, you had an opportunity to address
your questions on the Yerkir’s website to BORIS NAVASARDIAN, President
of Yerevan press club.

Below are the answers to your questions. See the full version of the
interview in Armenian.

Thank you for your active participation: Spartak Seyranian,
editor-in-chief of “Yerkir” Weekly.

Jirair – Freedom of press is a super-goal for any country, and
especially for Armenia. But how should we treat a reporter, whose
report is often deliberately incorrect, to say the least. Please,
do not reply in a classical way that “readers decline such papers,”
or “you can sue those papers,” because people do not read papers in
today’s Armenia (the newspaper circulations are the proof of this),
and the level of trust in courts can be seen in the Yerkir Online’s
previous interview.

Boris Navasardian – The question is somewhat rhetoric. How a person
— regardless of his/her profession — is regarded if he or she
lies or is engaged in a fraud? This is especially true in case of
journalists who use words and facts as their key tools. What should
we do in such cases? Of course, the journalist should not be thrown
in jail; neither the paper (TV station) should be shut down. The
best way is the clear diversification of the papers in the market
so that everybody knows that one paper is a quality one, the other
is a “tabloid.” A media outlet is a product as everything else. For
instance, we trust the quality of one garment; other times we buy
a cheap piece of clothing just to wear it once or twice. However,
both garments have the rights to be represented in the market. There
are people whose views and knowledge are appreciated, and there
are individuals who simply gossip: we might listen to what they are
saying out of curiosity but we hardly trust them. When you know who
is who, the damage from misinformation can be much less. In Armenia,
however, you may see quality reports and extreme “tabloidness” in
the same paper. The situation will change eventually. Many editors
and reporters are addressing this issue already.

Garegin Vardazarian – What are your organization’s plans in developing
our journalism, protecting the rights of media outlets, enhancing
the professionalism and press freedom?

Boris Navasardian – We are trying to actively react to current needs
and challenges. All the issues that I touched upon in my previous
answers are reflected in our projects: minimizing the government’s role
in regulating the media, simultaneously establishing self-regulation
bodies, improvement of journalism education and implementation of
international standards in the Armenian journalism. In addition,
the enhancement of media’s role in Armenia’s integration in regional
processes is one of the pivotal goals of the Yerevan Press Club. To
learn more about our projects, you may visit our web sites at:
; ;

See the full version of the interview in Armenian.