I’m a naive person — I believed that Armenia’s National Commission of TV and Radio (NCTR) would actually carry out detailed monitoring of TV coverage of the upcoming elections and would actually penalize those broadcasters that violate the law on election campaign coverage. And so that our TV companies, which I love and respect greatly (I particularly have a soft spot for the state broadcaster), avoid the NCTR’s penalties, I decided to remind everyone of a couple of legislative requirements with the advice to follow them.

The first and most important is the requirement of impartial election coverage that is stipulated by the RA Law on TV and Radio and the Electoral Code. According to Article 10 of the Law on TV and Radio, “News programs broadcast on television and radio have to present impartial information free of assessments on candidates, parties, alliances (parties participating in the referendum campaign), and election (referendum preparatory) campaign information, ensuring equal conditions.” The same requirement is specified in Article 19 of the Electoral Code: in paragraph 3, the requirement refers to the public broadcaster, while in paragraph 5, it applies also to “other radio and TV stations that broadcast surface airtime — independent of the type of ownership.” 

Though I find it hard to predict what the NCTR will consider impartial and what partial (biased), or what is an assessment and what isn’t, nevertheless I would advise journalists covering election meetings to avoid such expressions as “crowded rally”, “fervent ovation”, “enthusiastic voters”, “destabilizing statement”, “cheap sensation”, “cheap trick”, as it might be considered an assessment. Of course, it depends on whose rally and whose speech you assess this way. 

The second piece of advice refers to coverage of the activities of parliamentary candidate officials. As you know, our high-ranking officials, particularly if they’re on the list of election candidates, during this period love cutting red ribbons, welcoming delegations, and participating in other events for opportune and inopportune occasions. Events that essentially aren’t campaign-related — but hey, appearing before the public one more time wouldn’t hurt. An official runs in one direction and TV crews, naturally, run after him. And then, the reports on all the channels of the lovely image of the same official, without, of course, any election campaign text…

Say the Electoral Code has a restriction on the coverage of such events. Article 22 Section 1 Paragraph 3 of the Code reads: “Coverage — via mass media — of activities of these candidates [i.e. “Candidates occupying political and discretionary positions, as well as candidates occupying a position of state or community servant”] shall be prohibited, except for the cases prescribed by the Constitution, official visits and receptions, as well as activities carried out by them during natural disasters.”

I consider it my duty to warn my dear colleagues and TV reporters that the head of government and government members being present at Easter mass and smiling from the screen is not one of the cases prescribed by the Constitution, and our vigilant NCTR can view the coverage of participation in this as a violation of the article cited above. Note, as well, participating in the opening of a fountain or monument in some village at most can be viewed as a “natural disaster” (well, based on the fact that the official’s entourage definitely will cause traffic jams in the village’s narrow street), but a constitutional power? Never. In any case, be cautious in covering such events. If, nevertheless, you have covered it, remember that the same Article 22 of the Electoral Code also has a Section 2, which reads:

“Where coverage of other activities of a candidate referred to in this Article is made, mass media must consider this when covering the activities of other candidates, in order to comply with the coverage equality principle.”

To start, these two pieces of advice to my colleagues, so that they don’t suddenly become the target of penalties applied by the NCTR in practicing extremely vigilant control. 

Mesrop Harutyunyan

The views expressed in the column are those of the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of Media.am.