“Numerous media operate in Armenia; however, the media landscape is characterized by a limited and politically affiliated advertising market which leaves room for only a few self-sustainable media outlets,” reads the Statement of Preliminary Findings and Conclusions on the April 2 parliamentary elections in Armenia issued by the International Election Observation Mission (IEOM).

Head of the OSCE/ODIHR election observation mission, Ambassador Jan Petersen, in conversation with Media.am, said the IEOM published its preliminary conclusions, trying to assess the elections from different perspectives. He considers the environment in which the elections were held to be the most important. 

Referring to the critical tone in this year’s report, Ambassador Petersen said under no circumstances does the election observation mission compare the process of elections of different years, or the experience of different countries.

“We place importance only on what we see now. There are different approaches to writing reports; we chose this format,” he said.

And he added that now is the time for a proper understanding of the text, since the report is the result of long and thorough work. 

To evaluate the elections process, 14 experts, 28 long-term and 250 short-term observers were deployed throughout Armenia and drew conclusions on not only the voting process itself, but also the circumstances conducive to or impeding it.

Petersen stresses that they monitored not only the election coverage and election day itself, but also the media landscape in which the elections took place. This is the methodology of the monitoring.

As for how the observers’ recommendations will have an impact on the lives of Armenians, different institutions and the public will have to decide. 

“We are not elections police: we are not authorized to validate or not validate the elections. We are just reporting what we see. And then assess it with national standards and best practice. And then we go page by page, issue by issue of all aspects of the elections.”

In the report, a separate section is allocated to analyzing the media and the overall media landscape. Transparency in media ownership was considered particularly urgent. 

Relying on journalists’ and media experts’ statements, the observers concluded that “major commercial television (TV) stations are reportedly financed by businessmen in order to promote their political and commercial interests, often perceived by IEOM interlocutors to be affiliated with the government.”

Which then allows the claim that “the ultimate ownership of media outlets is not transparent.” The RA Law on TV and Radio Broadcasting doesn’t require the disclosure of media outlets’ ultimate and beneficiary owners.

This is also why the IEOM concluded that the editorial interference of media owners “results in self-censorship and discourages critical reporting of the government, including on public TV.”

Media analyst with the OSCE/ODIHR election observation mission Elma Šehalić told Media.am: “Of course it’s important to calculate the possible effect of the issue of media ownership, since political pluralism is the main source of information.”

IEOM monitored the airwaves and remarked that stories of public interest (e.g., the wave of protest regarding the lists collected by school principals) were not covered by H1. 

The findings include journalists’ reports that cases of violence against journalists and their insufficient prosecution undermine their safety and hinder their work. 

The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media urged to protect journalists’ rights and conduct an in-depth investigation with journalists’ participation. 

The report also notes that “there were no televised candidate debates on major TV stations, including H1, which could have enhanced the opportunity of voters to compare electoral programmes of the contestants and allowed opposition parties to challenge the ruling parties directly in public.”

“I’m not sure that I can note all the components of measuring media impact, but we were able to identify those components that affect elections,” said Petersen. 

He added: “We encountered another serious issue: there were complaints and concerns, but a lack of evidence and facts was noticeable. Many people were talking, but they weren’t prepared to present any evidence.”

From February 24 to March 31, IEOM monitored the First Channel of Public TV (H1); the private channels Armenia TV, Kentron TV, Shant TV, and Yerkir Media; and three online media outlets: Aravot.am, ArmTimes.com, and Hetq.am.

The monitoring results showed that coverage was 98% neutral or positive in tone. However, there was “a clear bias of monitored TV stations in favour of their publicly perceived party affiliation.”

While prime time programming on the TV channels with the largest audiences — Armenia TV, Shant TV, and the First Channel — was dominated by entertainment programs.

The report states that there is no interference in online news sources, which contributes to increased media pluralism and critical reporting. While some online media outlets, financed by international donors, are able to provide in-depth and investigative journalism (e.g., CivilNet.am, Hetq.am, and RFE/RL’s Armenian service, Azatutyun).

The Electoral Code stipulates that public and private TV and radio stations must provide “impartial and non-judgemental” news coverage of candidates’ campaigns. 

But according to the report, this provision is vague and was not clarified by the the National Commission on Television and Radio (NCTR). Many TV journalists interpret this provision as an obligation to provide equal amount of airtime for each participant’s campaign in each program. The NCTR, however, provided no guidelines on how it would assess unequal coverage.

And though the NCTR report shows an unequal amount of coverage of participants, NCTR recorded no violations.

In two months, the IEOM will publish the final report on the observation of the elections in Armenia, which will also include practical recommendations for the media sector. 

“Of course we all have our own opinions on solutions, but you yourselves have to decide how our recommendations can be effective in your country, since you’re the experts,” says Šehalić.

Addressing journalists, she urges them to read the report in greater detail: “I want to use this opportunity to call on journalists to read the report carefully, not just copy-paste only the press statement … or just take the first two sentences. With all my regards to my colleagues, beloved critical journalists, … but sometimes they are not very well prepared, they do not make the effort to read the whole report of the elections. They are looking for the headlines, which is somewhat understandable, but it [does not reflect] what we are really doing. We are trying to view the situation really deeply.”

Petersen recalls that one of the preconditions for any country’s development is investigative journalism. 

Nune Hakhverdyan