Media 'must enjoy freedom to raise awareness' amid state of emergency - Abraham Gasparyan

The media must have the freedom to breathe and create under conditions of a national emergency to exercise their primordial function of awareness-raising without provoking panic, ArmNews TV Channel's Abraham Gasparyan said during his evening broadcast on Thursday.

Commenting on the government-imposed state of emergency effective .March 16 until April 14, Gasparyan noted that the measure raised the highest concerns for the local media.

"That's normally the situation around the world. The watchdog's function is to voice the existing problems, prompting the government an alternative way and pushing dissidents and critics to the frontstage, etc. Understandably, in critical situations as this the state itself is the Lord and Master; hence any uncontrolled information is not pleasing at all - to say the least - to those responsible for security," he said, calling for high alertness and caution to avoid panic, as well as possible attempts to overthrow the constitutional order.

"The media like to speak and write and read - in a simple and accessible way, i.e. - using a clear-worded terminology. The statement on the state of emergency contains a pivotal term not giving a clear interpretation to the loose concept of 'panic'. Its inaccurate definition - let alone the failure to identify what a media outlet means at all - will give way to various interpretations, allowing each and every media source to interpret it in its own way," Gasparyan said, noting that heads of several media companies have requested clarifications from the emergency coordinator in a recently issued written address.

The commentator also highlighted the absence of clearly outlined steps proposing specific rules of conduct for the media under the current conditions (what information to convey when reporting the coronavirus statistics in and out of Armenia or the condition of those who have contracted the infection, etc.)

Gasparyan particularly drew attention to the clause calling for reference "only and exclusively" to the official news flow (released by the emergency service) when reporting updates on the global pandemic.

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