The Armtimes publication about the Ministry of Culture budget on state and private media funding was qualified as scandalous.

We talked about the topic with the Coordinator of Literary Program of the Ministry of Culture, Armen Sargsyan, who also deals with issues on media support and assures us that that the funding had taken place according to Ministry standards.

He thinks that non-state media funding should be multiplied several times, so that print and electronic media can create quality content.

Armen Sargsyan is convinced that the Ministry’s assistance cannot be considered an attempt to influence the media.

In the library drawer

Today, the ability to calculate money is important for any journalist. For example, the income of  this or that institution. The State Revenue Committee publishes the list of the largest taxpayers in Armenia quarterly. But navigating the website is difficult since it opens in an awkward looking thousand-row excel spreadsheet file.

Taxes paid by large companies can be tracked through the website harkatu.am. Here  it is easy and convenient to dig through information regarding Armenia’s major taxpayers. Financial data from each company is sorted according to year and types of taxes.

This website is not state-owned, but was created by the IT company SFL, using open data. Programmers simply had the public and journalists in mind, making searches easier.

Gegham Vardanyan