Shant TV today fired news anchor Armen Dulyan, telling him it was due to a status update he posted on Facebook.

“Shant TV news program director Aghasi Hunanyan called me yesterday afternoon and informed me that the management had a meeting yesterday morning and decided to fire me because of something I posted on Facebook,” says Dulyan. 

The news commentator believes there’s been a misunderstanding.

“It’s just that people took personally that which was not addressed to them,” he says. 

In the post in question (screenshot below), published on June 8, Dulyan, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his wife’s recent decision to divorce, writes:

“My, my, aren’t we similar… Russia’s newly created Public Television yesterday decided to make a jest at Vladimir Putin’s divorce, but the program was immediately taken down… How can one joke about the president — it is akin to a coup d’état… But how similar are the people in charge of Russian and Armenian television with their level of primitivity…”

Shant TV issued a statement — incidentally, also published on Facebook — saying future collaboration with commentator Armen Dulyan cannot be considered acceptable, since he displayed a disrespectful attitude toward the TV station. 

“Offensive statements on social networks directed at TV companies’ management and publicly agreeing with the cynical and vulgar invectives that follow don’t leave room for continuing a working relationship with Dulyan,” reads the statement, in part.

This is not the first time that Armen Dulyan’s comments in other media platforms raised an eyebrow at Shant TV. 

“About a year-and-a-half ago, when I wrote for Ejournal, TV director Artur Yezekyan asked me to meet with him specifically about this issue, saying it would be better if I wasn’t active in online news media and if I don’t write critical pieces. I explained to him in detail that he has the right to demand only one thing of me: that in this TV station I maintain that which he wants. What I do outside of the TV station, in other news outlets, and what I write on Facebook is not within his powers. It seems to me, he understood; after that, there was no more talk, and no one said anything more,” says Dulyan. 

Yerkir Media TV news and political programs director Gegham Manukyan believes that every employee initially has to come to an agreement with management regarding his or her posts on social media.

“Consider this a challenge to regulate the confrontation and contradiction of individual approaches in social media for anyone working in any environment. In many countries, this is regulated with an employment contract,” he says. 

Armenian Public Television’s director of news and analytical programs Gevorg Altunyan likewise finds that employers and employees should clarify and adhere to the rules of the game. 

“All media organizations have their own interests, world views, internal procedures, and so on. I assume that no manager would be particularly pleased if her employee posts in social networks, which today have quite a wide reach and weight in shaping public opinion, comments that contradict the company’s interests or policies. In any case, a Facebook post, as a reason to dismiss someone from work, seems quite absurd to me,” he says. 

Also leaving Shant TV is Armen Dulyan’s wife, journalist Ruzan Khachatryan, who resigned of her own initiative.

Recently, Kima Yeghiazaryan, a reporter with the daily newspaper Hayots Ashkharh, was also dismissed due to posts she made on Facebook.

Anna Barseghyan

Updated June 12, 2013: The statement from Shant TV (the paragraph that begins with “Offensive statements”) was added.