The meeting of the President of the Republic of Armenia with journalists on Monday should naturally be talked about much. Serzh Sargsyan’s statements should certainly be discussed, criticized, and commented on. However, there usually is a “supplementary subject” in such cases; those people who are not invited to such meetings claim that those who are invited are controlled by the president – this is a minor accusation. Although it is hard to imagine how
Serzh Sargsyan controls Radio Liberty financed by the US Congress. Frankly speaking, I, as a journalist participating in the meeting, was concerned about my work whether I would be able to quickly and skillfully tell my readers this story, which I did using my tape recorder. Unfortunately, I haven’t had time to read the articles written by my colleagues about the same meeting. However, since the mass media are interested in that “supplementary subject,” Aravot asked Armen Arzumanyan, the press secretary of the Republic of Armenia, for clarifications, and the latter sent the following answer: “I want to clarify once again that the President of the Republic of Armenia didn’t convene a press conference, but rather he met with representatives of a set of information agencies. We had informed about the format of the meeting in advance that ‘this time representatives of TV channels will be the majority among the participants.’ The participants were allowed to use recorders and they used those. And TV channels had the full video, and they have shown as they wished, fully or partially.” After all this, I want to ask Armen not to call me to the next such meeting, in order that I am able to write about the invited journalists that they are “controlled.”
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
Aravot Daily
