Halfway There

[May 4, 2005]

In Armenia there is no journalist or media outlet that does receive calls to their office demanding that they not publish certain information. The callers are people of different status, from low-ranking officials to high-ranking politicians. How the various news organizations react to these calls is another question, but the callers are well aware that in Armenia, censorship is prohibited by law. In the first year of Armenia's independence, the Law on the Press and Mass Media made censorship illegal. There is no glavlit , or government agency that censors newspapers before they are published, or TV programs before they go on the air. Instead, there are a few self-proclaimed glavlits that do what they can to keep information from reaching its audience, confiscating newspapers from the printers or collecting them from newsstands.

"The economy is not working at full capacity, and as a result the advertising market has not taken shape and the mass media are financially dependent. They are influenced by the government or political forces, oligarchs, and individuals," explained Astghik Gevorgyan, president of the Armenian Journalists' Union. "This dependency increases drastically during elections. And whoever pays defines the rules of the game. Maybe this can't be defined as censorship, but it clearly hinders freedom of speech."

According to Aram Abrahamyan, the editor-in-chief of Aravot, censorship is accomplished using economic and other levers, such as clan influence, or political party. He doesn't agree that in the first years of independence the press had more freedom. "We can't say that in the 1990s the press was free and now it isn't. There hasn't been complete freedom for the press yet."

Though his newspaper is relatively independent compared with most of the Armenian press, Abrahamyan admits that Aravot is not completely so, and that part of its budget is paid for by sponsors. "But if we didn't have any sponsors, Aravot wouldn't shut down; it's just that we've gotten used to the good life," he said. If circulation were to increase three-fold to 15,000, the paper would no longer have any financial dependency. But is that likely to happen? "It is hard to say," Abrahamyan said, "since the number of readers depends not only on their purchasing power, but also on the quality of our work. We're probably not doing a good enough job to have 15,000 readers today."

Flora Nakhskaryan, editor-in-chief of the socio-political newspaper Golos Armenii, believes that the voice of an information source is more important than its freedom. "You need to have your own unique voice for anyone to listen to you." She agrees that there are information constraints put in place by the government. "Let it hide 10% of information; journalists should have free access to the other 90%." As she explains it, "There are many problems and issues that our press does not cover, since it cannot find the necessary information. You don't have to look far [for an example]. Cross the street, enter some ministry building and try to ask three questions. I am sure that either you won't receive an answer, or you'll receive an answer that is not complete, or else they'll say something stupid."

While Armenia's print media is independent to some extent, the broadcast media is in a far worse situation.

"TV is not independent in Armenia. In reality, TV is controlled from the center. When you watch news on different channels and compare it, you can see the direction the reports on the same topic have, and understand where the order comes from," said Edik Baghdasaryan, president of the Investigative Journalists of Armenia.

Gegham Manukyan, president of Yerkir Media, thinks that most TV companies are dependent on different financial and political circles. "They [the TV companies] are not businesses themselves. This lack of freedom is also a product of corruption. Unfortunately, in Armenia the broadcast media is also corrupt in some way. They're always afraid to express their opinions freely, since that can result in problems with their sponsors."

Manukyan also complains that the television companies cannot survive on money from advertising alone. "The number of TV companies that are here today does not represent the country's population, or it's economic or regional development level. As a result, the distribution of the advertising revenue among them does not create necessary conditions for the growth and development of Armenia's TV companies." Despite their material dependency, Manukyan insists, "There is no information that we are afraid to publish, it's just that not every press conference is important to us, regardless of who's giving it. We don't decide whether to cover it or not based on our political leanings."

A report by the US State Department on March 1, 2005 notes that in 2004, Armenian journalists ".under the influence of government officials and to avoid potential problems with the government, continue to censor themselves." Nune Sargsyan, the executive director of Internews, explains that censorship is performed by both reporters and editors. "I don' want to go into detail, but this is caused by several factors, including the government desire to the control the media. In my opinion, censorship is not a product of anyone's free will." As Sargsyan see it, the Armenian press is at a critical point right now. It can either lose the values of free speech it gained over the last fifteen years, or achieve complete independence.

Karine Asatryan