Until the 80s, Soviet Armenia\u2019s post-secondary institutions didn\u2019t train sports journalists. Experience and opportunities came either accidentally or if there was a clear goal. In my case, it was a dream from my youth.<\/p>\n
Now the situation has completely changed. \u201cSports journalism\u201d is taught in many post-secondary institutions, even media outlets work in this direction. It seems it\u2019s become fashionable, opening a variety of journalism schools, organizing classes, and giving a \u201csports journalist\u201d certificate to just about anyone \u2014 without a serious educational foundation, analytical thought, vocabulary, or the existence of other skills sports journalists or commentators need.<\/p>\n
The profession of \u201csports journalist,\u201d it seems, has become an opportunity not to be idle or find any other job in the future.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s acceptable to consider that the media\u2019s main functions are the providing of information, the shaping of opinions and impact on society. Now let\u2019s try to understand to what extent sports media (in this case, that covers football) fulfills its role.<\/p>\n
In the coming days, Armenia\u2019s national and youth football teams are going to have two qualifying matches each. In the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia qualifier<\/a>, Armenia\u2019s national team will play against Poland on October 5 in Yerevan, then Kazakhstan on October 8 in Astana.<\/p>\n There\u2019s almost no information on Armenian websites about these matches, the teams\u2019 preparations, or the standings.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n And, in general, the sports media\u2019s response to Armenian football news in many cases is limited to the translation of stories about Henrikh Mkhitaryan published abroad or the reproduction of social media posts made by Mkhitaryan himself.<\/p>\n In addition, local Armenian sports journalists don\u2019t want to interview even Mkhitaryan or the teams\u2019 coaches.<\/p>\n In early September, the Armenian national team spent about a week in Yerevan, and the sports journalists who reproduce any and all information about Mkhitaryan didn\u2019t try or perhaps were too lazy to try to interview him.<\/p>\n The Football Federation of Armenia\u2019s press secretary informed me that during those days not a single media outlet or journalist contacted Mkhitaryan or team coach Artur Petrosyan for an interview.<\/p>\n Let me say, as well, that the Armenian Football Championship matches are not broadcast on any Armenian TV channel; there isn\u2019t even live text reporting. You\u2019ll also find information about the matches or standings with great difficulty.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n It\u2019s true, the teams\u2019 press officers broadcast the matches on YouTube, mainly with their own commentary, but these broadcasts cannot influence the public, since they are mostly for so-called \u201cinternal use.\u201d<\/p>\n Problems in Armenian football are many: our football is now in a grave situation, and this is the result of not only what football officials did or didn\u2019t do, but also the neglect of the duties of media outlets covering sports.<\/p>\n The sports media doesn\u2019t provide the public with the necessary full information, cannot shape opinion, and therefore, doesn\u2019t have an impact.<\/p>\n Football officials, and the teams\u2019 managers and coaches don\u2019t feel media pressure at all.<\/p>\n Football has become work for a small number of people. And these few people are accountable only to their employers and not to the public: the footballers to their coach, the coaches to the club presidents, and so on.<\/p>\n Our society has become completely cut off from football, and in this, sports journalists have their share of the blame.<\/p>\n Armen Nikoghosyan<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Until the 80s, Soviet Armenia\u2019s post-secondary institutions didn\u2019t train sports journalists. Experience and opportunities came either accidentally or if there was a clear goal. In my case, it was a dream from my youth. Now the situation has completely changed. \u201cSports journalism\u201d is taught in many post-secondary institutions, even media outlets work in this direction. Read the full article…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-critique","author_posts-armen-nikoghosyan"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8690","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=8690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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