"REGRESS RECORDED IN RA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS IN TERMS OF FREE IDEOLOGICAL COMPETITIVE STRUGGLE," CHAIRMAN OF YEREVAN PRESS CLUB BELIEVES
Noyan Tapan
Feb 25, 2008
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 25, NOYAN TAPAN. The Yerevan Press Club and "Team"
Research Center have carried out an observation of the coverage of the
RA 2008 presidential elections in broadcast mass media of Armenia in
two stages by the assistance of the Open Society Institute. As Boris
Navasardian, the Chairman of the Yerevan Press Club, mentioned at
the press conference held on February 25, irrespective of the fact
that the coverage of mass media has been balanced in terms of the
time and attention given to the candidates, not all of them provided
equal conditions in terms of contents.
Boris Navasardian mentioned that according to the observation of the
Yerevan Press Club, RA presidential candidate Serge Sargsian has been
covered by almost all the media mainly in a positive context. And the
materials covering the campaign of Levon TEr-Petrosian were mainly
in a negative context.
In the words of Boris Navasardian, campaigns in Armenia last at least
6-7 months for the past years and this in case when, all in all,
1 month and 28 days are envisaged by law. Here, according to him,
an inadmissible situation is created, when propaganda without any
rules and regulation is taking place for months. Touching upon the
Public TV and Radio, Boris Navasardian mentioned that the latters
worked as partial media made political during the previous months.
In the estimation of the Chairman of the Yerevan Press Club, not
progress but regress was recorded in these elections in terms of
the development of the culture of public policy, free debates, and
free ideological competitive struggle. He reminded that numerous
TV companies, as well as radio waves have tried to organize debates
between the candidates, which, however, have failed.