THE RADIO-STATION ‘AZATUTYUN’ (LIBERTY) AND ITS NEW ‘CRITERIA’

AZG Armenian Daily #074, 21/04/2007

I am sincerely surprised listening to the everyday news of the
radio-station ‘Azatutyun’. The most improbable thing to me was to hear
mistakes and disinformation by this radio-station. Let’s see a fragment
of the evening broadcast of March 3 about the parliamentary elections
in Armenia: ‘Armenia is divided into 41 electoral districts. Each
part is a separate theme of conversation. Which part is better,
which is stony? Where and how much is 1m^2 of land?

How many hectares of land can you reap and sow? What kind of neighbor
fall to his lot? A relative, who is a General, or the respect that
the candidate has, can do everything during the elections. Thus,
we can understand that the votes are on the table, rolled in lavash
(national bread)’.

After this ‘neutral’ commentary-preface the news follows saying ‘Only
Samvel Babaian, one of the leaders of the parties, put forward his
candidature by majority system’. Then the reporter contradicts himself
and goes on: ‘ARF (Dashnaktsutyun) and the opposition avoid putting up
their candidates by majority system. Ararat Zurabian puts forward his
candidature by majority system’. The reporter has forgotten that Ararat
Zurabian is the leader of the opposite ANM (HHSH) party. Besides,
the other leaders of the parties also take part in the parliamentary
elections by majority system: i. e. Gagik Tsarukian, Manuk Gasparian,
Hovhannes Hovhannisian, Khosrov Harutyunian, etc. Moreover, what about
the ARF (Dashnaktsutyun), it does not avoid putting up its candidates
by majority system. The party declares that their principle is to
form the parliament only by proportional representation, and they
have only one candidate by majority system.

After these lines, our point of view about the high professionalism
of the reporters of ‘Azatutyun’ radio-station blows up.

On March 6, in the evening broadcast the reporter mocks at the
elections saying: ‘Please agree, we speak so much about the clean
and just elections that we are even afraid of it. What if the
elections don’t be clean and pure? Will Mr. Bush strike Iran, or
Putin’s daughter marry Sahakashvili’s son, after that? In any case,
the authorities will not have right to declare that everything is
transparent. We do not speak about the opposition, as its point of
view is nothing for anyone. Sorry, only once the Constitutional Court
took into consideration the opinion of the opposition, and even the
Court was afraid of the boldness of itself.

Anyhow, the last word is up to the observers’.

We come to a conclusion from the above-mentioned, that the
radio-station ‘Azatutyun’ has not qualified reporters to do political
analyses.

What about Iran, all the media, especially the Russian one, was talking
about the strike that USA intended to realize against Iran. They
declare even the day and the time of the strike. Being one of the
neighbors of Iran the anxiety about this was big in Armenia, too.

Nevertheless, ‘Azatutyun’ radio-station didn’t say a word and didn’t
do any analyses and commentaries.

Probably I would not return to this theme if I did not read an
article in ‘Haykakan jamanak’ daily about the former worker of
‘Azatutyun’ radio-station Anna Karapetian. She told the reporter that
she was dismissed from her job even being the 12 years’ worker of the
radio-station. Anna Karapetian is a well-known professional reporter
and if she does not satisfy the requirements of the radio-station,
it means that the criteria of the radio-station were changed and the
radio-station needs non-qualified reporters only who do mistakes and
spread disinformation.

In order to show that the elections in Armenia are not as disgraced as
‘Azatutyun’ radio-station represents, we want to show some fragments
from the broadcast of the radio-station: UN Security Council has only
five members, Bagoto is the capital of Columbia, there are no other
countries in the world, besides Armenia, that demand taxes for the
import of alcohol, Serj Sargsian held the tenure of Prime Minister
before the funeral of Andranik Margarian, and ‘Surb Khach’ Church
of Akhtamar has never had any pilgrim and incense-bearer before the
reconstruction by Turkey.

Let us examine another example. In the broadcast of April 1 we heard
the opinion of the actor Levon Sharafian (living now in Los Angeles)
about the ‘Armenia’ pan-Armenian fund. From his point of view,
building the roads is a way of making money. No one wants to open a
dining-hall for the hungry people.

Levon Sharafian left our country in 1995 and he has Armenia of 1995
in his mind, when in the axis of the social policy of the country
was the opening of charity dining-halls. If not the reporter, but the
editor had to know that ‘Armenia’ pan-Armenian fund was established
to build roads which have a strategic role for our country, and not
to open dining-halls.

The actor could be ill-informed, but not the reporter, who had to be
informed and select a right interlocutor.

Thus, we can say that ‘Azatutyun’ radio-station is interested in not
giving the right information to the auditor, but to make its broadcast
full of disinformation.

New criteria are defined for ‘Azatutyun’ radio-station that have
nothing to do with professional journalism.

By Sara Petrosian