WE EXPECT UNBIASED COVERAGE OF THE ELECTIONS
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[06:30 pm] 13 February, 2007
The quality of the elections will be made public on May 12, after
the NA elections, but it is already obvious that "the elections are
but a failure in view of their unbiased and impartial coverage",
Levon Barseghyan, head of the Journalists’ "Asparez" Club said today.
During the roundtable titled "Objective, impartial and balanced
coverage of the elections Mr. Barseghyan urged the RA mass media
representatives to do their utmost to provide free and unbiased
coverage of the elections. The tariffs of the political advertisements
(80 – 130 thousand AMD) gave ground for his concern.
Four TV Stations of Shirak Marz announced that they refuse to broadcast
political ads and they assure that there has been no pressure on them.
"It means there will be shadow advertisement", assumes
Mr. Barseghyan. By the way, out of 29 regional TV Stations 11 have
already made public the prices of political advertisements.
Elina Poghosyan, an expert from the Yerevan Press Club, finds it
strange that the RA leading TV Stations have fixed almost the same
tariffs and the same amount of ads.
Hakob Avetikyan, editor-in-chief of "Azg", is surprised at the
fact that the tariffs of political ads are higher than those of the
commercial ones.
Satik Seyranyan, editor of "168 Hours" newspaper, finds it natural
that private TV Stations should fix high tariffs but she finds it
inadmissible that National TV Station which is directly financed by
the state budget should fix 80 000 AMD.
"I cannot speak of the price formation mechanisms as it is a
complicated issue. But the price is already fixed and it is 40 –
50% lower than that of other TV Stations", Gnel Nalbandyan, deputy
director of National TV Station said. The participants of the round
table assured that the prices offered by them aren’t too high as the
RA parties and deputies are ready to pay the sums.
To note, the roundtable was organised by the press service of EU Human
Rights Administration, "Internews" NGO and the Yerevan Press Club.