Aravot, Armenia
Feb 17 2007

SURVEY SHOWS SOME ARMENIAN MEDIA BIASED IN RUN-UP TO ELECTIONS

by Garik Lazarian
"H1 and ALM are unbalanced"

The Caucasus Media Institute has summarized up the results of its
10-day broadcast media monitoring. It related to the news broadcast
by TV and radio, the participation of politicians in political and
entertainment programmes and the happenings related to them in the
election period. Four TV channels – Public TV, Shant, ALM and Yerkir
Media [Country Media], and two radio stations – Public Radio and
Azatutyun [Freedom] Station – were monitored. "We counted the time
provided for a particular politician and party. We also paid
attention to the contents and intonation of the coverage," Council of
Europe expert David Ward said.

The head of the monitoring group, expert Nina Iskandaryan, said that
some of the media had been biased and given obvious preference to
certain political parties and politicians. In the news the references
to politicians were balanced, except for "Haylur" [Public TV news
programme]. "Public TV dedicated 75 per cent of its news to the
ruling coalition, and only 25 per cent to the opposition and other
forces. Public Radio gave more time to the parties that are not
members of the coalition than the ones that are part of it. Before
the start of the [election] campaign ‘Haylur’ can try to make its
news coverage more balanced," Iskandaryan said. She mentioned that
Yerkir Media and Shant have given balanced information on the whole,
while the Azatutyun radio station spent more of its broadcast time on
parties that are not members of the coalition (63 per cent) than on
the ones in the coalition (37 per cent).

In the case of ALM, Iskandaryan said that the ones covered mostly
were the parties that are not members of the coalition, and great
attention was paid to the People’s Party, both in the news and
separate programmes, which is because the owner of the TV station and
head of the [People’s] Party, Tigran Karapetyan, is a presenter.
Iskandaryan said that similar surveys will be carried out two weeks
before and during the parliamentary election campaign.