“United Russia” party members have made a legislative initiative to make changes to the RF law on “Mass Media”, which would enable all media to be mobilized under one common self-regulatory media organization. MPs believe that in doing this it will be possible to create one nationwide self-regulatory media organization, which will regulate all mass media following the principle of pyramid. The authors of the initiative also believe that the admission to the organization should be payable, which will be 300 thousand rubles. According to them, the organization shall be governed by independent experts, hence, the author of the article at “Nezavisimaya Gazeta” expresses concerns to this respect that a person, let’s say a “foreign spy” may all of a sudden appear in the aforesaid Board. In the conversation with Aravot.am, Chairman of “Committee to Protect Freedom of Expression” Ashot Melikyan said the following about this initiative, “I think the authors of the initiative have no idea what mass media self-regulation is, since this process is purely the business of the journalistic community, the state has nothing to do with it. If the state wants to do something with the law, it can make amendments in the legislation regulating purely mass media, but self-regulation should be left with the journalists. There should not be compulsion by the state, and if any, it is unacceptable.” The recommendation regarding the membership fee, Ashot Melikyan responded as follows, “It should also be determined by the journalistic community, especially if the fees are too high, that not every media will be able to pay.” According to Ashot Melikyan, the most serious problem is that the state in the process of self-regulation, especially legislatively obliging, has no such function. He observes, “RF has serious problems with regard to freedom of expression and this means that even in the self-regulatory process the journalists will not have the autonomy and will have to abide by state requirements.” We asked whether he sees any danger with Armenia’s joining the Eurasian Union, that one day something like this would be imposed on our journalistic community, Mr. Melikyan said, “Our political elite follows what RF does and in many cases it just copy and paste them. The overall environment may also have an impact on the decisions of our political elite; this danger exists. On the other hand, we should admit that our situation with respect to freedom of expression is much better than of the RF. Here, RF has something to learn from us, and it will be good for our political elite, at least in this matter, does not follow the example of the RF.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
