The draft amendments to the Law on Mass Media, co-authored by Civil Contract MP Artur Hovhannisyan, received a positive conclusion in the NA committee. The media will be responsible in case of copying the news of sources not identified by that project and fake news. In addition, state bodies that do not publish the annual financial report or do not have identification can not be registered in state bodies, or if there is no information about the holder or owner of that media.
The MP stated that he wanted to improve the media field with this. During the sitting, Artur Hovhannisyan said that the project was discussed with media organizations. The chair of the Committee to Protect Freedom of Expression, Ashot Melikyan, told Aravot that they had only one meeting with the author and said that such changes were unacceptable and that they would fight against them to the end. The initial version of the project was much more problematic.
“We keep saying that citing anonymous sources is a must, especially for investigative journalists. They did not agree. In the end, they changed the non-identifiable source, but we said, it’s almost the same words and you won’t be saved by that. Then we urged them and said, well, you do not listen to us, at least send it to the Council of Europe. We insisted so much that they send it to the Council of Europe for an examination that they did so. They gave a negative conclusion and this became a serious basis to reconsider the approaches in the draft and not to ban references to non-identifiable sources by law. We used to say from the beginning that technologies have evolved, a thousand and one tricks are done through those technologies, in that case why do you ban the media, let them take it from an unidentified source, they will be responsible for the spread of information. It will be in accordance with international norms. In other words, the media is already taking responsibility for disseminating information of public importance.”
In response to the question of whether this settlement is aimed at improving the media field, or if the situation will become more complicated and create new problems for the media, Ashot Melikyan answered, “I think the media outlet, which considers itself responsible and qualified, should not see any problem here because if we look at the current practice, we see that the media tries to hide behind an anonymous source and, without taking any responsibility, spreads misinformation or fake news. We see all that. It really does a lot more damage to the information field. Dissemination of this misinformation in the society is generally inadmissible. The media does not lose the opportunity to continue to use wherever it has been used. They do not say to check the domain, where it is immediately obvious that it is a fake user, or it is an unidentified source from a “Telegram” channel. If the information that the media takes from an unidentified source, the media considers that it is of public importance, publishes it, and takes responsibility, what is the problem there? I do not see a problem with that. Moreover, it is an international practice. Someone has to take responsibility for the news. It turns out that the process is to create a better and more responsible media field. Every one of our platforms that does not want to report any information about itself, that does not communicate with its audience, and the opposition media said that there were so many platforms, they do not work in the field of law. Now it is more for these types of platforms, so that they work in a professional and legal field and, taking advantage of all the sources of freedom, also have a responsibility for what they disseminate.”
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The CPFE will submit proposals and pursue a change in the draft.
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
