Television and Published Media Pre-Election Campaign Monitoring

On March 24th a seminar on “TV and Printed Press Monitoring of Pre-Election Campaign” took place in Vanadzor.
The newly selected sixteen volunteers of HCA Vanadzor participated in the seminar.
Levon Barseghyan, the president of “Asparez” journalists’ club of Gyumri, taught the volunteers the methods and mechanisms of TV and printed press monitoring.

It is expected that during the pre-election campaign, from April 8th till May 10th, the participants will be realizing monitoring of local television channels and newspapers.
The air of television channels “Spitak” of Spitak, “Ankyun gumarats 3” of Alaverdi, “Tashirk” of Tashir, “Fortuna” of Stepanavan and “Mig TV”, “VaBa” and “Lori TV” of Vanadzor will be imonitored during the period from 18:00 till 24:00 o’clock.
The weekly newspapers “Vanadzoryan Khchankar”, “Loru Marz”, “Civil Initiative”, “Legislative Culture” of Vanadzor, “Spitak” of Spitak, “Stepanavan” of Stepanavan, “Aghara” of Tashir are also going to be subjects of study.
  During the monitoring period, the nature and capacity of publications or programs concerning the candidates nominated in majoritarian and proportional systems from Lori region will be observed.
The programs will be categorized by their nature: obvious ordered advertisement, obvious anti-advertisement, presumptive political but hidden indirect advertisement and obvious impartial editorial materials. The length and capacity of air for any kind of programs and for each candidate will be taken into consideration.
  “The behavior of television companies and newspapers during the pre-election campaign can be investigated only via monitoring”, said the president of “Asparez” journalists’ club of Gyumri, Mr. Levon Barseghyan.
The monitoring aims to find out if the television channels follow the Electoral Rights defined by the “Electoral Code” during the pre-election campaign. The results of monitoring will also show if the information given during the pre-election campaign by the local Mass Media is impartial and objective.

The training was implemented within the framework of the project “Capacity Building of HCA Vanadzor in the Sphere of Right Protection” implemented by HCA Vanadzor with support from Open Society Institute and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.