OPEN DOOR: THE READERS’ EDITOR ON … ATTEMPTS TO IMPROVE THE NEWS MEDIA IN ARMENIA
Ian Mayes

The Guardian, UK
Oct 2 2006

Some time in the next couple of months a book of these columns,
chosen from those dealing mainly with ethical issues arising from the
Guardian’s journalism, will be published in Armenian. They are being
translated by Marine Petrossian, a poet, in the Armenian capital,
Yerevan, as part of a project funded by the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco). The idea is to make
them available to journalism students at a time when the media in
Armenia, like the country itself, are going through a crucial stage
in their post-Soviet development.

As in Russia, where a book of Open Door columns was published last year
under the evocative title of Work on Mistakes (Rabota nad oshibkami),
there is no experience of the kind of mediated conversation between
journalists and readers that the columns represent. Something that
is now normal here still appears to be quite revolutionary where
impunity and the pretence of infallibility have been the norm. This
is more or less the case in Armenia.

Armenia is a small country (about the same size as Belgium) in the
southern Caucasus, landlocked between the Black and Caspian seas. It
has a population of about 3 million of whom about 1 million live in
Yerevan. There are many more Armenians in the diaspora and they make a
major contribution to the economy. Armenia was one of the southernmost
parts of the Soviet Union and it still has strong ties to Russia. It
is bounded by Georgia, Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkey.

History strongly intrudes on the present in these countries.

The border with Turkey is closed and an issue is Turkey’s failure
to acknowledge the genocide of Armenians in 1915 as the Ottoman
empire came to an end. Attempts within Turkey even to discuss the
genocide in which about one and a half million people are said to
have died, have resulted in several high-profile trials which have
attracted international condemnation. According to a Gallup poll, 57%
of Armenians within Armenia believe the government should not agree
to reopen the border until Turkey acknowledges the genocide.

I was there recently with Jeffrey Dvorkin, the former ombudsman of
National Public Radio in Washington and my predecessor as president
of the Organisation of News Ombudsmen, to take part in a conference
on self-regulation of the media. We went at the invitation of the
Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the Yerevan
Press Club, whose president, Boris Navasardian, is a tireless promoter
of research and debate on media standards and accountability. It is
a slow business.

There is no press council in Armenia, and there is no universal code
for journalists, although individual organisations are in the process
of formulating their own. The institution of ombudsman does not exist
either for the industry or in any individual news organisation. A poll
of journalists conducted for the Yerevan Press Club and the OSCE in
2004 showed that while standards of professional ethics – on accuracy,
impartiality, plagiarism, the need to refuse bribes and to resist
extortion, etc – were widely valued, respondents thought that less
than a third of Armenian journalists observed them. However, the vast
majority believed that improvement was possible and 82.5% supported
the idea of self-regulation, with the most-favoured form being a press
council and the least favoured that of an industry-wide ombudsman.

It may be that Armenian public radio and television, whose main
channel can reach audiences of more than a million, is the first
to experiment with the appointment of an ombudsman, although I have
the impression that there is no more than a strong interest in the
idea at present. Television is the most popular source of news. The
largest daily newspaper in Armenia has a circulation of 6,000, and
the largest weekly, 8,000.

Changes are inevitable. One is likely to be in the male domination
of the media. Journalism students at the two universities I visited
in Yerevan are nearly all women. Jeffrey Dvorkin asked where they
got their news from. Hardly any read newspapers, few listened to
the radio, many watched television and the majority went online. Did
they have favourite sites, Dvorkin asked. Yes, they said in chorus,
the Guardian. If any of you are reading this on line: "Greetings and
good luck."

reader@guardian.co.uk

www.newsombuds men.org

· See the analysis by the European Journalism Centre at Maastricht:

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