FAMOUS COMPANIES MONITORING RESEARCH RESULTS ON ARMENIAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

Panorama.am
13:31 13/02/2008

On 08 February International ECHO Research Company published a report
of the media monitoring in Armenia.

The mission of the monitoring was to find out whether the pre election
campaign period in Armenia is equally covered.

"The results of the research carried out showed that media in
Armenia is independent. The TV stations broadcast the materials on
the candidates in balance, and the press keeps the diversity also,"
said Karen Prichard, the head of the ECHO Research Company.

According to the company they covered basically the news programs and
interviews on TV, Radio and newspapers. TV coverage was democratic
and they kept the balanced broadcasting, whereas press publications
conduct so called non democratic policy.

According to the survey results, Armenian Public TV was carrying out
balanced broadcasting policy. They gave equal chances to be televised
to all the nine president candidates of the forthcoming presidential
elections.

"To conclude, Armenia is a country which is in its transitional
period. The mass media is not ideal.

However media is not menaced by the political forces, and if it
is and if it comes under pressure, the pressure is reported on,"
is written in the conclusion of the survey.

British specialists of Populus sociological research center conducted
a more detailed survey by posing a great number of new questions to
1500 Armenian voters.

This survey differs from the previous polls in its volume, diversity
of questions.

According to the poll results the Prime Minister and the Armenian
presidential candidate Serzh Sargsyan is in the first place. Arthur
Baghdasaryan of the Country of Laws is in the second place. And the
other candidate Levon Ter-Petrosyan is in the third place.

According to the results of the poll, the voters of Armenia treat the
forthcoming presidential elections positively. The majority of the
participants to the poll said that they have objective view points
and they think that Armenia is in its direct stage of development.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress