{"id":4376,"date":"2014-06-06T11:44:37","date_gmt":"2014-06-06T11:44:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/media.am\/journalists-relations-with-local-self-governing-bodies-case-of-vanadzor\/"},"modified":"2014-06-06T11:44:37","modified_gmt":"2014-06-06T11:44:37","slug":"journalists-relations-with-local-self-governing-bodies-case-of-vanadzor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/newsroom\/2014\/06\/06\/4376\/","title":{"rendered":"Journalists&#8217; Relations with Local Self-Governing Bodies: Case of Vanadzor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lradadar Club, one of the initiatives in recent years of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mediainitiatives.am\/\">Media Initiatives Center<\/a>, is an informal gathering for professional discussions on the media for journalists and others working in news media. Those participating in the discussions are people in the industry: journalists, editors, directors, managers, critics, analysts. Lradadar is a unique self-regulation tool for journalists.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This time Lradadar was in Vanadzor. The topic of discussion was relations with the local self-governing bodies. The occasion was an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.asparez.am\/news-hy\/vanadzor-avagani-shahinyan\/\">incident<\/a> [AM] that occurred during a Vanadzor City Council meeting in which a journalist and council member <a href=\"http:\/\/www.armnewstv.am\/news\/26580\">hurled insults<\/a> [AM] at one another.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Media.am summarized the opinions made at the discussion and presents them below in point form.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>On the work of journalists in the regions and relations with local self-governing bodies in general<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In the regions, it&#8217;s easier to criticize the central, state authorities than the local authorities. This is an unwritten rule in Armenia.<\/li>\n<li>Unfortunately, there are few journalists in the regions that monitor and cover the work of local self-governing authorities.<\/li>\n<li>Journalists are those through whom local self-governing authorities have to be accountable to the public.<\/li>\n<li>The interest of journalists is often perceived very keenly by local authorities because they sense that the consequences can be dangerous for them.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What a journalist covering a city council meeting must know<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A city council meeting is open [to the public and the media]. In order to have a meeting behind closed doors, 2\/3 of the council has to vote in favor.<\/li>\n<li>Journalists do not require accreditation for city council meetings.<\/li>\n<li>Neither the mayor nor the city council can adopt a legislative norm that restricts the rights of journalists.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>Even if the city council meeting is closed doors, the decisions adopted must be made public.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>City council meetings are chaired by the mayor, and if order has been breached, the journalist shouldn&#8217;t enter into an argument but appeal to the meeting chair and ask that order be restored. &nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>On the incident between the council member and journalist at a Vanadzor City Council meeting<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The actions of the journalist and council member at the Vanadzor City Coucnil meeting cannot be considered equal, since if there wasn&#8217;t a violation of the rules of procedure during the meeting and the inappropriate remark directed at the journalist, then there also wouldn&#8217;t be its continuation. It&#8217;s obvious that the first to cross the unacceptable boundary was the council member.<\/li>\n<li>To avoid such incidents [in the future], it&#8217;s advisable that both the editorial office and the city council have rules and regulations.<\/li>\n<li>The work of journalists covering the city council meeting can be regulated, but those regulations should not restrict but facilitate the work of journalists.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>The rules of procedure bring all news outlets covering the city council meeting to a level playing field and rule out privileged status. But regulation of the work of news media must be within reasonable standards.<\/li>\n<li>RA Criminal Code Article 164 considers interfering with a journalist&#8217;s professional, lawful duties to be a crime. Journalists must know this and remind those who interfere with their work.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>The culture of apology is very important in all areas, including relations between the media and state agencies.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>On the journalism community in Vanadzor and solidarity<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The journalism community in Vanadzor is not united, but in isolated cases, journalists succeed in uniting to protect their interests.<\/li>\n<li>The absolute majority of journalists serve local oligarchs and the journalism community from the start couldn&#8217;t have been united.<\/li>\n<li>Solidarity among journalists can be around principles: rules, agreements. Solidarity cannot be homogenous, as journalists also think differently. For example, the journalism community cannot defend a journalist if the journalist committed a crime. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>P.S.<\/strong> <em>The names of those who made the comments are not noted; they represent the general spirit of the discussion.<\/em> &nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lradadar Club, one of the initiatives in recent years of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mediainitiatives.am\/\">Media Initiatives Center<\/a>, is an informal gathering for professional discussions on the media for journalists and others working in news media. Those participating in the discussions are people in the industry: journalists, editors, directors, managers, critics, analysts. Lradadar is a unique self-regulation tool for journalists.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsroom"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}