On November 9-11 in Tsaghkadzor a seminar “Media Self-Regulation: First Steps and Objectives. Pre-Election Processes in Armenian Media” was held. The event was organized by Yerevan Press Club with the support of Open Society Institute. The seminar brought together heads, representatives of media and journalistic associations of the country, including those who supported the YPC initiative of joint development of professional ethics norms and their further adoption in day-to-day work. As it has been reported, on March 10, 2007 at the meeting of heads of media and journalistic associations the Media Ethics Observatory was elected. The mission of the Media Ethics Observatory consists in considering the complaints-appeals regarding the violation of the Code of Conduct and presenting its opinion on them. As of today, 31 media have signed the Code of Conduct of Media Representatives and its Appendix, the Declaration on Election and Referendum Coverage Principles. The initiative is also supported by 8 journalistic associations (see the texts of the documents in YPC Weekly Newsletter, March 9-15, 2007).
The main issues discussed at the Tsaghkadzor seminar were the media self-regulation process and the first judgments of the Media Ethics Observatory, made on September 12, 2007 (see details in YPC Weekly Newsletter, September 14-20, 2007). The interactive discussion evolved around the precedent of complaint consideration by relevant self-regulation structures in a number of foreign countries. The seminar participants were also presented the situation in Armenian media ahead of presidential elections and the preliminary results (October 2007) of the monitoring of 8 Armenian broadcasters, administered by YPC before the election campaign.
On the last day of the seminar its participants adopted an address to Armenian media (see below).
