AZERBAIJANI MASS MEDIA LEADERS DISCUSS SITUATION IN RUSSIAN LANGUAGE PRESS

TREND Information, Azerbaijan
Jan 16 2007

Azerbaijan, Baku, 15 January/corr. Trend S. Ilhamgizi/ There was no
official decision and statement made about shutting down Russian
language mass media in Azerbaijan. Therefore the proposal to shut
them down is senseless. According to Trend this statement was made at
a press conference by the leaders of the Russian language mass media.

There is no any legal way or authorized body that can shut down the
Russian language mass media, Elchin Shikhli, the editor-in-chief
of the newspaper Zerkalo said. The gross income of all combined
Azerbaijani papers does not exceed $2 mln. A quarter of this amount
falls to Zerkalo and another quarter falls to the newspaper Echo,
Shikhli added. Only the Azerbaijani language mass media could make
such a proposal as they wish to get a hold of the advertising market
by shutting down the Russian language mass media. "However every paper
has its own readers. There are enough people in Azerbaijan who speak,
read and think in Russian. Therefore I can’t understand the people
who wish to shut down the Russian language mass media," Shikhli said
and added that there is no need to politicize the proposal to end
Russian language mass media.

Ilgar Huseynov, Executive Director of Trend news agency said that
this problem does not concern his agency since his agency spreads
news in three languages and the agency plans to increase the number
of languages in the future. The agency has special features and it
is very important to inform the wide readership about the current
development and success of Azerbaijan, Ilgar Huseynov said.

The mass media is also a business structure and therefore should
not be closed. The Russian language mass media should not be stopped
in order to maintain tolerance in the country and to not allow the
Armenian community of Karabagh misuse it against Azerbaijan, Elnur
Baimov, head of Day.az news website said.

According to Baimov, the Azerbaijani language mass media should improve
their professionalism to compete with the Russian language mass media.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress