{"id":9315,"date":"2018-02-17T05:47:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-17T05:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/media.am\/fact-checking-in-armenia\/"},"modified":"2018-02-17T05:47:00","modified_gmt":"2018-02-17T05:47:00","slug":"fact-checking-in-armenia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/verified\/2018\/02\/17\/9315\/","title":{"rendered":"Fact-Checking in Armenia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fact-checking, especially in the digital age, becomes more and more important for journalists\u2019 work. Journalists track officials\u2019 statements, promises, speeches, and the work of their fellow media outlets. One of the first most famous examples is Politifact\u2019s Obameter<\/a>, tracking Obama\u2019s promises. The project now tracks Donald Trump\u2019s campaign promises<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In Armenia, specializing in the art of fact-checking is the website Sut.am<\/a>, founded by the NGO Union of Informed Citizens.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor years, we\u2019ve been encountering lies made to the public, which need to be exposed. In the past, we would refute them with the help of our colleague media outlets, but then we realized that the time to create our own platform has come,\u201d says website coordinator Daniel Ioannisyan.<\/p>\n

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Complications<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There are instances when checking a fact takes days, even months. Especially when it is necessary to send inquiries or study and check on site.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes it takes a long time; you lose the topic\u2019s state of being current, public interest, or it definitely decreases, but you have no other option because you have to be careful and not suddenly publish a lie yourself,\u201d says Ioannisyan.<\/p>\n

The fact-checking team in Armenia sometimes encounters complications connected to legislation. \u201cOften it\u2019s not possible to determine which company in reality belongs to whom. For revelations in the area of corruption, this is a very important tool, for not only us, but also law enforcement agencies.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, a problem may arise in the energy sector where a lot of information is considered a trade secret.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor example, to date we haven\u2019t been able to check whether Iran offered Armenia [natural] gas at a favorable price or not? There are differing opinions; it\u2019s impossible to find out the truth. The issue is legislative. They are making use of the opportunity afforded by law,\u201d says Ioannisyan, adding that the organization has 7\u20138 court cases on the non-provision or incomplete provision of information.<\/p>\n

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Correcting Errors<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

If necessary, Sut.am supplements already published news stories. Ioannisyan does not rule out the fact that they too make mistakes.<\/p>\n

This is what happened in the case of the article \u201cGovernment and Razm.info Publish \u201cClassified\u201d Information (updated)<\/a>.\u201d It was supplemented upon Razm.info\u2019s insistence.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course after that case, we reviewed our approaches and decided to be much more strict with ourselves, but the main principle remains that we don\u2019t lie suddenly. And though in this case basically we hadn\u2019t lied, the reader may have been left with the wrong impression of Razm.info, which was disagreeable for us,\u201d says Ioannisyan.<\/p>\n

The editorial team has set a principle for itself: there\u2019s no lie they don\u2019t address \u2014 whether it be made public by the ruling authorities, the opposition, or civil society.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce even I managed to spread a lie related to the EU enlargement policy commissioner\u2019s statement, which I misunderstood and gave the media wrong comments, which Sut.am likewise published<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Public Impact<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Ioannisyan noticed that in recent years officials avoid divulging figures. Serzh Sargsyan, especially, has become much more careful in analyses and promises. \u201cIn the past, he loved publicizing different numbers on the economy; now he publicizes numbers less, and when he does, he does so very carefully. Now it\u2019s become much harder to catch Serzh Sargsyan on a lie.\u201d<\/p>\n

The website uncovers not only wrong information, but also manipulation. \u201cSometimes a topic has one positive and 10 negative aspects. And presented to the public is only that one positive thing. In the direct sense, it\u2019s not a lie, but we cover also those cases in our \u2018Not a lie, but\u2026\u2019 section,\u201d says Ioannisyan.<\/p>\n

Apart from news articles, Sut.am sometimes also publishes short videos, where complex information is presented more simply.<\/p>\n

Also incorporating the use of videos is another fact-checking project: Lragir.am\u2019s Fact checking. Here there are thematic satirical videos<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Coordinator of the fact-checking project on the website Naira Hayrumyan says they choose two topics a month and try to verify whether the official data correspond to reality. They produce satirical videos on the same topics.<\/p>\n

Fact-checking is itself a good thing, but another issue worries Hayrumyan. \u201cI as a citizen would want to see the continuation of checking facts. Let\u2019s assume that it was discovered that an official lied, then what? Does that person bear any responsibility for this? After all, that lie usually affects people\u2019s expectations or building plans.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn some countries there\u2019s an honor code. Say, if an official lies and this is revealed, he considers it his duty to either resign or at least apologize, but this doesn\u2019t exist in Armenia. There also isn\u2019t legal regulation or where to go to appeal that an official told a lie. A lie as a legal category doesn\u2019t exist; there is defamation, but if it\u2019s simply a lie, how to sue? If these issues are not regulated, fact-checking by and large is meaningless because it has no continuation,\u201d says the journalist.<\/p>\n

Anahit Danielyan<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fact-checking, especially in the digital age, becomes more and more important for journalists\u2019 work. Journalists track officials\u2019 statements, promises, speeches, and the work of their fellow media outlets. One of the first most famous examples is Politifact\u2019s Obameter, tracking Obama\u2019s promises. The project now tracks Donald Trump\u2019s campaign promises. In Armenia, specializing in the art Read the full article…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsroom","category-verified","author_posts-anahit-danielyan"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9315","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=9315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}