On May 2-4 in Tsaghkadzor, the seminar "Media at Elections-2003", organized by Yerevan Press Club with the support of Friedrich Ebert Foundation, took place. The event was devoted to the most vital issue for the country and the “fourth estate“at present – the past presidential and subsequent parliamentary elections. It has coincided, or to be more precise, has been devoted to a no less significant journalistic date – World Press Freedom Day. In 1993, the UN General Assembly declared May 3 as the journalists’ international professional holiday. Since 1997, it has appeared in the calendar of the Armenian media. According to the tradition, this day is marked by summing up the previous year’s results and looking forward to the future.
The interchangeable election marathons and the relevant events provide plenty of food for speculation. The results of the YPC media monitoring on the coverage of the RA presidential elections, presented at the Tsaghkadzor seminar by the YPC Expert Mesrop Harutyunyan, and the results of a similar study for the first ten days of the National Assembly election campaign provide the media with the opportunity of a look from the outside. Besides air time seconds and newspaper centimeters, no less important is the ethical aspect of this coverage, whose problems were stressed by the Executive Director of the Public Television of Armenia Armen Arzumanian. The distinct feature of the elections-2003 has become their deep “penetration“ into the virtual space. Internews Armenia producer Armen Sargsian has presented the Internet activity of the media and professional associations. The Chairwoman of the Journalists Union of Armenia Astghik Gevorgian has spoken about the extensive program of JUA directed at assistance to the journalists covering the elections (International Press Center, training courses and etc.). Election campaigns in the eyes of foreign media – it is to this topic that the speech of the Foreign Correspondents Association President Tigran Hovhannisian was devoted. YPC President Boris Navasardian has analysed the situation with the freedom of speech in Armenia and the region also citing the assessments of international organizations publicized on the eve of World Press Freedom Day.
