TV CHANNELS WERE KIND

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05:51 pm | June 01, 2009

Politics

The Yerevan Press Club today presented an interim report on the
coverage of the elections for the Yerevan City Council by 7 Armenian
TV channels. The monitoring was conducted with the financial assistance
of the Open Society Institute.

The monitoring was conducted in two stages – before the start of the
election campaign and during the campaign. The final report will be
ready in a few days.

Presenting the general content of the monitoring, President of the
Yerevan Press Club Boris Navasardyan noted that the coverage of this
campaign differed from that of the presidential elections. According
to Boris Navasardyan, the materials presented by media and the
technologies used by the participating forces did not tend to prove
that the rival was worse. On the contrary, every political force had
the objective to prove that it was better.

The content of seven TV channels in Armenia was monitored. With
regard to the Public Television, Boris Navasardyan said: "This time
the Public TV ensured almost exemplary coverage."

Six other TV channels included the Second Armenian Channel, ALM (both
aired all over the territory of the republic), ArmNews, Yerkir Media,
Kentron and Shant. "This was a neutral, and even a kind campaign,"
this is the conclusion experts of the Yerevan Press Club drew.

Summing up the results, Boris Navasardyan stated: "This proves that
our electronic media can be rather unbiased if they want so. If they
are not neutral, then they don’t want to or are not allowed to."