“Hayastani Hanrapetutiun” daily (founded in 1990, by RA Parliament), which has stopped publication since January 12 this year, because of the necessity to comply its legal status with the new Civil Code of the country, will renew its activities in February. This time RA Government is to create a close joint stock company that will found the newspaper, Ashot Aghababian, “HH” Editor-in-Chief told Yerevan Press Club.
Thus, “Hayastani Hanrapetutiun” will be reformed by the principles that applied to Russian language newspaper “Respublica Armenia” (see YPC Weekly Newsletter, January 13-19 2001). These two newspapers were founded by RA Parliament in 1990 as one publication, however, shortly after this, “Respublica Armenia” separated from “HH”. The newspapers will still be issued independently of each other, having separate editorial staffs, yet their founders are the same: heads of the Public Relations and Information Departments of RA President Office, RA National Assembly, RA Government, as well as the Department of Information and Publications at the RA Government. The status of a founder for both newspapers is specified by the position of the officials, their share in the newspapers being equal (25% each).
Unlike “Respublica Armenia” that has become a weekly, “Hayastani Hanrapetutiun”, according to Ashot Aghababian, will maintain its periodicity, and will be issued daily except for Sundays and Mondays. The paper size (A2) and the print run (5 thousand copies) of the newspaper will not change either.
As to the political orientation of the newspapers, since they will still be controlled by the state, it is reasonable to expect that both “RA” and “HH” will retain their pro-governmental attitudes.
