International Journalist’s Network
July 17 2006
Armenian Journal: Youth activist empowers peers through journalism
Region :None
Country :Armenia
Topic :Young Journalists, Print Journalism
17/07/2006
By Timothy Spence, Knight International Press Fellow
As a child living in Soviet Armenia, Arthur Ghazaryan read the
weekly newspaper for young communist Pioneers. Later, as a high
school student in the newly independent country, Ghazaryan and his
classmates started a newspaper – writing their copy by hand because
there were no computers available.
Today, the energetic 26-year-old youth leader is preparing to publish
the second edition of a tabloid-size newspaper geared toward young
people in the northeastern town of Dilijan. It is part of a larger
project sponsored by the nongovernmental Academy for Educational
Development, or AED, to create print- and Web-based information
outlets for youth groups in Armenia’s rural regions.
Ghazaryan says AED’s Youth and Community Action Program wants to
encourage young people to become involved in decision-making and instil
democratic values. “We want to ensure them that they are something
in the community, not just zero. We want officials to respect them,”
said Ghazaryan, the program representative in Dilijan.
Young Dilijan, the monthly newspaper that Ghazaryan helped found in
his hometown, is part of that process, he said in an interview in the
Armenian capital of Yerevan. He is also working to fund a youth-run
radio station that would be an outlet for entertainment as well as
educational and discussion programs.
But the process has not been easy. Newspapers in Armenia largely
rely on political or individual sponsors for their revenue, with most
advertisers in the small Caucasian nation of 3.2 million buying time
on television rather than space in print media.
In Dilijan, Ghazaryan asked the mayor’s office to help fund the first
six issues of Young Dilijan – but he said part of the arrangement is
that the paper would be rigorously independent.
“We’re not going to criticize something if it’s not correct. We’re
going to publish new ideas. This is not going to be just another
political newspaper,” Ghazaryan said.
There is also a problem of staffing, something editors of youth and
student newspapers anywhere can appreciate. Ghazaryan said he was
prepared for such challenges before the first issue went to press in
June. “Starting this, I realized how much hard work this was going
to be,” he said. “I was ready to hear, to accept, lots of critics.”
His goal is to build a newspaper staff – and eventually, a radio crew
– that can work without his involvement. The newspaper now has three
or four “core” contributors, all of whom are volunteers.
“I myself am doing all this voluntarily. This is not my job, I’m just
interested in it,” Ghazaryan said. “I am the chief editor right now,
I’m the designer of the newspaper, I’m collecting all articles and
deciding how to design everything.”
“I want in one year to have a group of journalists, of young people,
who will work independently, who will have their chief editor et
cetera,” he said.
As a child, Ghazaryan said he read the Pioneer Call, a Communist Party
newspaper that was popular for its news about youth achievements,
events and puzzles. He wants to borrow at least some of those ideas,
highlighting success stories of young Armenians who complain that the
mainstream media, with their heavy emphasis on politics, overlook them.
Young Dilijan will also tackle tougher issues. Ghazaryan says the
September issue will focus on employment and changes in the nation’s
education policies, including a new requirement for 12-year education,
up from the current 10. The change was designed to bring Armenia’s
education system up to European standards, but it has triggered
controversy with parents and students who say the old system has
worked well.
“We have an aim or purpose to educate the young people to get informed
about youth policy in Armenia … to get informed about events in
Dilijan, because not everybody knows about them, to inform them
about active people who won competitions in Yerevan or international
competitions, and of course to educate them through the newspaper,”
Ghazaryan said.
Youth groups around Armenia that are either starting newsletters or
Web sites recently participated in a journalism immersion course.
More than 60 students, youth leaders and teachers underwent the
training provided by the Knight International Press Fellowship program,
a partner of the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ).
The regional youth centers are gradually being equipped with computers,
scanners and Internet access.
Ghazaryan was born in Dilijan, a bucolic town in the mountainous
Tavush region of Armenia. Once a Soviet resort for composers and
artists, Dilijan is like many regional towns and villages outside
the sprawling capital – its economy is struggling and young people
seek opportunities in Yerevan or abroad.
Ghazaryan graduated from Dilijan’s University of Management and
Information Technology with a degree in business administration,
and hopes to earn a master’s in business administration some day.
But for now, his focus is on using the Internet, Young Dilijan and
his hoped-for community radio to keep the younger generation active
and informed.
The independent Yerevan Press Club lists more than 70 print
publications serving Armenia. Most of them are small and few serve
rural markets.
Fifteen years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, press freedom
remains tenuous in Armenia. According to the Committee to Protect
Journalists, the government has restricted coverage of terrorism,
continues to deny a broadcasting license to an independent TV network
that was ordered off the air in 2002, and cites occasional attacks
on journalists.
Reporters Without Borders ranks Armenia 102 out of 167 nations in its
most recent “press freedom index.” Neighboring Georgia ranked 99 and
Azerbaijan 141.
Ghazaryan – who was always “eager to be a journalist” – says that
while the media today “are not independent, for sure,” the younger
generation will change that.
“Armenia is a small country and everybody knows each other. If you
are the owner of any kind of mass media, and if you write something
which is correct, which is very healthy criticism about an official,
in a couple of days you will be punished for that,” he said. “Not
always, but enough.
“Right now a new generation is getting educated abroad, and they are
coming back to Armenia, and they are bringing a new way of thinking
about journalism … more European, more American, more democratic. I’m
optimistic that everything will change.”
Timothy Spence is a Knight Fellow working with journalists
in Armenia. This is his second tour with the program; he
was previously in Ethiopia. The John S. and James L. Knight
Foundation sponsors the fellowships, administered by the
International Center for Journalists. For more information, visit