Because of the opposition’s repeated refusals, my colleagues sometimes find themselves in such tricky situations that they are even compelled to contact other journalists with the request of assuming the “No” position

The Dec. 6 referendum on constitutional amendments is unprecedented in terms of the procedures preceding all the elections in the history of the Republic of Armenia.

It’s the first time that none of the forces involved in the campaign, with the exception of New Armenia, has publicized its meetings schedule, and journalists are unable to see people’s reaction to the arguments of the “Yes” and “No” camps. 

If so many opposing forces hadn’t chosen the same strategy, one might suspect that the order to go to the regions without journalists came from the same control center, offering the exact same argument as an explanation to journalists, that when they speak with people without cameras present, people are more sincere — a discovery that took just two decades. 

But under these conditions, what grounds do journalists have to believe the “No” campaigners, who claim that during their numerous meetings they have never come across a “Yes” supporter? And the opposite — neither are there grounds to believe the “Yes” campaigners.

Our media polls, which don’t lay claim to the laurels of sociological research, show that greater are the ranks of people unfamiliar with and simply indifferent to the document.

The referendum campaign is unprecedented also in terms of the fact that, it seems, for the first time, the opposition won’t be able to complain that it was deprived of airtime. Of course, particularly known is this finding of the Yerevan Press Club (YPC) monitoring of Armenian broadcast media coverage of the referendum campaign, that representatives of the initiative No Pasaran! during the two-week period didn’t get any airtime on any of the monitored programs.

But first, let us note, it’s obvious that No Pasaran! was simply an attempt to serve the political, it can even be said purely partisan initiative under the “sauce”of a civic initiative.

And it was no accident that at the Oct. 30 “No” rally, head of the Armenian National Congress parliamentary faction Levon Zurabyan explicitly stated [AM]: “The No Pasaran! initiative did very important work, but it still has a lot of work to do. They really were able to make a great contribution to the work of mobilizing political forces, civic initiatives, and NGOs. They were able to organize many major rallies. But the time has come for political parties also to enter the rally fight.”

And besides, also known is the other finding of the YPC monitoring — from the YPC Review [AM]: “No matter how much representatives of the Armenian National Congress (HAK) regularly complain of the opportunities of their appearing on broadcast media, nevertheless, in both stages of the YPC study (October 26 – November 19), of the opposing camp, HAK had the largest volume of cumulative editorial airtime. The Rule of Law (“Orinats Yerkir”) and Heritage parties that follow are significantly behind HAK, even if the time allocated to both on the monitored TV channels are combined.”

We add, those regularly complaining of the opportunities of their appearing on broadcast media, the high rates of paid airtime of the campaign, and content editing refused an unprecedented offer: the opportunity of live and unpaid airtime for 20 consecutive days on two broadcast channels.

But again they continued to complain, offering [AM] these sort of bizarre arguments: “Of course, they dreamed for people of the “No” forces who are as influential as possible to be present, and they contacted everyone, but they didn’t receive an affirmative answer from anyone and [so] were forced to fill the “No” [seat] with people unfamiliar to the public.”

This was stated by a young No Pasaran! and at-least-not-as-yet-famous member about a real story in which the “No” side is represented by, say, one of the most famous Armenian political prisoners of the Soviet period, one of Armenia’s long-standing prime ministers.

Because of the opposition’s repeated refusals, my colleagues, having an obligation to ensure balance in the monitored television coverage, sometimes find themselves in such tricky situations that they are even compelled to contact other journalists with the request of assuming the “No” position (I myself have twice received such proposals).

And in summary, let us note that among those not wanting media coverage of their meetings during the referendum campaign is the Central Electoral Commission of Armenia (CEC). The CEC sends the news release of its meetings and their agendas only a few hours before they take place, though definitely they aren’t last-minute and urgent meetings.

Considering that the online broadcast of CEC meeting doesn’t always work, they too, like the “Yes” and “No” supporters, probably prefer that media outlets remain at the hope of their meetings transcript.

Anna Israyelyan

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