| Monitoring of the media coverage of presidential elections in Armenia - 2003 (Expert M.Grigoryan) |
Preliminary report
The Caucasus Media Institute has monitored the qualitative aspect of media coverage of the 2003 presidential campaign in Armenia. Monitoring lasted throughout the campaign, from January 21 until February 17, and continued on the eve of the Election Day and on Election Day.
Conclusions
• The coverage of the campaign cannot be considered objective, fair, unbiased or balanced. Neither public nor private media showed any will or ability for impartial reporting.
• Throughout the campaign, Armenian media accompanied most news reports with comments, thus instructing the audience how to interpret the news.
• The coverage was based on reporting events in the candidates’ campaigns. Only a few articles and TV programs compared provisions from electoral programs. Debates ignored programs and focused on the life histories of the candidates and the services they had rendered to the state and the army. What voters could learn from the media about electoral programs was thus insufficient for voters to make an informed choice.
Armenian media thus used their right to express their views yet failed to offer voters sufficient data for an informed choice.
The monitoring team concludes that the coverage of elections was not up to international standards.
The Campaign in the Media
Public and government-owned media
According to the Electoral Code of Armenia, candidates had the right to free and paid advertising on public TV and radio, and in state-owned newspapers, Hayastani Hanrapetutyun and Respublika Armenia.
The candidates used their rights as they chose, without any hindrance on the part of public and government-owned news media.
The Central Electoral Commission had set the limit for free and paid advertising on public TV at 6 minutes per day between January 21 and February 8; 10 min per day on February 9-17. Political advertising on public radio was up to 10 min per day between January 21 and February 9; up to 11 min per day on February 10-14; up to 13 min per day on February 15 and up to 16 min a day in the last two days of the campaign.
By setting these limits, the CEC prevented the candidates from using their own campaigning tactics such as showing films, stressing the first or the last week of the campaign etc.
Public TV deprived some of the voters of a chance to learn about the programs of some of the opposition candidates. Advertising, free or paid, was not broadcast by satellite, so that people in remote highlands and Armenians resident abroad could not learn what the opposition candidates proposed. For these groups, public television is the only source of news, and all they got was masked or open campaigning in favor of Kocharian. The CEC ruled that political advertising be broadcast by satellite, but this was not done.
Editorial coverage of the campaign on public TV was predominantly in favor of the authorities and hostile to the opposition. Robert Kocharian appeared on the news much more than the others; his campaign was reported positively whereas other candidates were shown in a negative light, in a tone that varied from light irony to biting sarcasm. Analytic programs and press reviews followed the same lines.
Of the guest speakers at public TV shows, twenty-nine campaigned for Kocharian, directly or indirectly, and of the seven that spoke in favor of the opposition, three appeared in debates against a representative of the incumbent president. Public TV journalists were critical of the pro-opposition speakers, made it clear they disagreed and interrupted them while expressing active support of what the pro-authority speakers said. The journalists thus violated article 5 of the CEC ruling of January 15, On the procedure for advertising in the mass media by runners for president of the republic, which forbids journalists to visibly take sides in debates.
News on public radio was impassive and presented in a calm tone. Opposition candidates’ campaigns were covered in a neutral fashion, yet reports about Kocharian were more numerous, longer and invariably positive.
Twenty of the guest speakers on public radio (Hayk, Radio Express and Andradarts programs) campaigned directly or indirectly in favor of the incumbent president. No guests spoke in favor of the opposition.
Coverage by state-owned newspapers, Hayastani Hanrapetutyun and Respublika Armenia, was clearly pro-Kocharian. Much more area was given to coverage of Kocharian’s campaign. Reports from Kocharian’s meetings were generally longer. Four such reports in Hayastani Hanrapetutyun each occupied a whole A2 page or more. Respublika Armenia published three such reports in A3 size or larger. Coverage of Kocharian’s campaign was overtly positive.
In the second half of the campaign, reports in Hayastani Hanrapetutyun on campaigning led by Artashes Geghamian, Stepan Demirchian and Aram Karapetian were all negative and some insulting. Respublika Armenia covered the campaigns of opposition candidates in brief reports, none of which compared to reports on Kocharian in either attitude or size.
Private TV companies
Before the campaign started, five private TV companies (Prometevs, Armenia, ALM, Shant, Kentron) agreed to set the same rates and conditions for political advertising. Every candidate could buy up to 80 minutes at $120 per minute in the UHF range, $130 per minute in the VHF range.
Opposition candidates insist the price was too high to let them conduct a full-fledged campaign.
The monitoring team noticed similarities in the structure of news reports on Kocharian’s campaign shown on public and private TV. A typical report on a presidential visit mentioned the economic progress or problems of the region, gave quotes of what Kocharian, his supporters or local intellectuals (often teachers) had said at the meeting, and showed people from the crowd also speaking in favor of the president. Kentron followed this pattern less than other stations.
The campaigning of opposition candidates was scantily covered by private TV stations. Prometevs and Armenia hardly mentioned the events held by Demirchan or Geghamian. Reports about Kocharian always came first, before the other candidates.
The coverage by private TV stations must also be qualified as subjective and biased in favor of the incumbent president.
Non-government press
The preliminary report made by Yerevan Press Club breaks the newspapers up into three groups: pro-Kocharian newspapers (Azg, Hayots Ashkhar, Golos Armenii, Yerkir, Novoe Vremya); ones campaigning for a particular candidate other than Kocharian (Ayzhm, Iravunk, in the last week also Orran) and ones not supporting anyone in particular (Ayb-Fe, Haykakan Zhamanak, Aravot, in the first weeks also Orran). In the first group, Hayots Ashkhar stands out for especially negative coverage of the opposition, sometimes direct insults of the runners for president. The newspapers in the second group each advertised their candidate and criticized Kocharian, sometimes in unethical ways. The rest were critical of all; by the end of the campaign, a bias for Stepan Demirchan was visible in Ayb-Fe and Haykakan Zhamanak.
Violations of the law
During the campaign, Armenian media committed a number of violations of the law. Most violations consisted in advertising by foreign citizens, Russians in most cases, and agitation by members of the government. The Electoral Code forbids government members to engage in advertising in their official capacity. Although it is not clear in which capacity they advertised, the number and intensity of such advertising suggests an organized campaign.
Minor violations concern the procedure of publication and broadcasting of political advertising. In most cases, editors apologized and referred to technical faults.
Anti-political advertisement, a video clip showing all runners for president except Kocharian in a negative light, was broadcast on public TV, Prometevs and Kentron on February 17. It broke several laws and a CEC instruction. The clip was not shown in the political advertising section as it should; it did not have the right words written on the screen; it quoted data of an opinion poll, which is forbidden in the last week of a campaign. However, according to the leadership of the Public TV, they do not control the content of commercials, and cannot be held responsible.
Ayzhm also broke this law when it published data of a poll among journalists on February 14.
On the eve of Election Day and on Election Day, when agitation was prohibited, camouflaged political advertisements were printed by Iravunk, Orran, Hayots Ashkhar.
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| 24 Feb 2003 |
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