ECHO Research: majority of examined TV-reports, radio-reports and
articles about elections in Armenia showed no evidence of reporting
bias
February 8, 2008
Yerevan /Mediamax/. Experts of the International ECHO Research Company
analyzed 743 TV-reports, radio-reports and newspaper articles,
published in Armenia within the first week of the pre-election
campaign, and came to the conclusion that 630 items from 743 showed no
evidence of reporting bias.
Mediamax reports that ECHO Research presented in Yerevan today the
report on the results of a media monitoring in Armenia. The European
Foundation for Democracy, based in Brussels, ordered the realization of
the monitoring. `MediaBrand’ Company was the partner of ECHO Research
in Armenia.
Presenting the report, the Director of ECHO Research Department Karen
Prichard called attention to an interesting fact: TV coverage was
overwhelmingly positive about the conduct of the elections, assessing
them as `democratic’ in virtually every item analyzed, whereas print
press judged their conduct as `undemocratic’ in almost 25% of cases.
The report notes that despite the `pro-government coverage’, the Public
TV of Armenia provided broadcast time to other candidates as well, as
legally required.
Karen Prichard noted that `the tenor of the often powerfully-worded
critiques of all candidates in the media implies a considerable degree
of freedom of expression’.
As to the volume of coverage in the media, during the first week of the
campaign, the Ex-President of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosian was leading;
the second place was occupied by the Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian.
All in all, the ECHO experts analyzed 390 newspaper items, 256 TV
reports and interviews and 97 radio reports and interviews and came to
the conclusion that in Armenia `heterogeneous media’ is present. `573
of the 743 items sourced took a balanced approach to each candidate
they discussed’, the report reads.
The ECHO experts came to the conclusion `that the conduct of the
elections themselves became perhaps the key electoral issue for the
media’. At that they noted that `the fact that the concerns as to the
possible undemocratic nature of the upcoming elections were so openly
reproduced, speaks strongly in favor of an uninhibited media sphere’.
The conclusion of the report reads:
`Clearly, Armenia is a country in transition. Its media sphere is not
perfect. However, media are not, for the most part, menaced by
political forces ` and when media comes under pressure, that pressure
is reported on’.