Armenia

Eurasianet has an interesting article on the arrival of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation in Georgia. According to the article, the global media mogul’s media company has taken a as of yet disclosed share in Georgia’s Imedi TV station. However, some civil society activists are concerned by the announcement although it has to be said that most appear to welcome the move, albeit with some reservations.

In comments broadcast on Imedi, Patarkatsishvili hailed the sale as “a very important development for Georgia, which gives us the possibility to increase [international] interest toward our country.” News Corp. representatives are far more restrained about the pending deal. Andrew Butcher, vice president of corporate affairs & communications, referred to the purchase as a business arrangement that does not include any plans for active partnership. In a telephone interview from his office in New York, Butcher derided reports that have News Corp. becoming a major stakeholder in Imedi. He said the company’s share of Imedi, provided the deal goes through, would be less than half of the widely reported 30 percent figure. Imedi representatives did not return repeated requests for comment on the sale terms.

Media experts in Georgia generally have lauded the move. Maia Mikashavidze, dean of journalism and media management at the Georgian Institute for Public Affairs in Tbilisi, expressed hope that News Corp.’s involvement in Imedi would have a positive impact on Georgia’s media environment. “Georgia media badly needs some financial investments [in the mass media sphere],” Mikashavidze told EurasiaNet. “It will put Imedi management now on a business track and hopefully expand and influence its overall operations and, as a result, improve the overall level of the media.”

A partnership could also provide some cover for Patarkatsishvili, who in recent months has fallen out with President Mikheil Saakashvili. In March, Patarkatsishvili complained publicly that authorities were pressuring media outlet owners to avoid publishing controversial stories or investigative reports that would cast the government in a bad light. Allegations of government meddling in media have appeared to increase over the past year. The international non-governmental organization Freedom House has characterized Georgian media as “partly free.”

Certainly, nothing is perfect, and we can especially see that in Armenia where the media is considered by Freedom House to be “not free.”

Armenia

Status: Not Free
Legal Environment: 20
Political Environment: 26
Economic Environment: 18
Total Score: 64

Georgia

Status: Partly Free
Legal Environment: 13
Political Environment: 27
Economic Environment: 17
Total Score: 57

Interestingly, this despite the largest investment in the media here coming not from established but controversial international news organizations, but from the Diaspora in the form of American-Armenian Gerard Cafesjian’s jointly owned CS Media.

Unfortunately, the enterprise has often broken the law and serves as a main propaganda outlet for the government. No wonder that in 2003, Armenia TV played its role perfectly for the incumbent before, during and after the widely criticized presidential elections. Of course, locals working in the media here say that there’s no way CS Media could be any different if Cafesjian wants to protect his interests in Armenia.

Incidently, talking of CS Media, I recently ran into Genocide Historian Vincent Lima in Yerevan. He’s now moved to Armenia where he’ll be the editor of a new relaunched Armenian International Magazine. Now under Cafesjian’s ownership, I can only hope that the other half of CS Media, Bagrat Sarkisyan, doesn’t turn it into another propaganda rag to disseminate good news stories and misinformation to the Diaspora.

The last manifestation of AIM did just that under the watchful eye of the Armenian Foreign Minister’s Advisor, Salpi Ghazarian, and despite a rumored $750,000 a year in operating cost only managed to attract approximately 5,000 subscribers. Still, as I know Vincent and as he’s an academic, I can only hope that things will be different with him at the helm. However, it’s a pity to hear that the intended audience is the same as it always was. That is, upper income ethnic Armenians in the United States.

Regardless, despite the fact that I have over a decade of experience with regional and national newspapers and magazines in the UK including The Independent and The Economist as well as having worked as a stringer for international publications, Vincent kind of implied that AIM magazine wouldn’t touch any of my work. Therefore, it will be no surprise if we get more of the same content that discredited the magazine in the first place.

Anyway, given that the Armenian media is even worse than that in our northern neighbor in terms of journalistic practices, it will be interesting to compare how an international media organization operates in that former Soviet country compared to how a Diasporan philanthropist with other interests in the country does here. Despite Murdoch’s notorious reputation with Fox News, one Georgian explains the situation quite clearly.

Mikashavidze, the journalism expert, suggested that professional standards in Georgia are so low, that any possible bias, real or perceived, introduced by News Corp. could not make things worse. “I spoke with the management of Imedi and they think they will be able to retain control over editorial content,” she said. “They will try to get best practices and avoid anything that is against their editorial policy.”

Eurasianet’s article is here.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 14th, 2006 at 1:20 am and is filed under Georgia, Diaspora, Caucasus, Media, Armenia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.