Pre-Election Media Situation Free

Mediamax reports that the European Foundation for Democracy is encouraged by the freedom enjoyed by the media in Armenia during the official pre-election campaign period. Indeed, it concludes, all voices can now be heard although there is obvious bias in terms of the extent of coverage afforded to some candidates over others and differences in the way the election is viewed by branches of the media.

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”.