From 11 to 20 June, 2019, the “Media Advocate” initiative followed online media reports on the member of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia, Hayk Sargsyan and his brother, assistant to the Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Nairi Sargsyan’s personalities’ and activities. 35 leading Armenian news agencies have been monitored.
In the specified period, 62 articles were declared, 37 of which were negative and 25 were neutral.
From the results of the monitoring, it becomes clear that the press and the society discusses MP Hayk Sargsyan more than his brother Nairi Sargsyan. Negative articles exceed even the number of neutral articles, there is no positive feedback. During our monitoring, it has rarely been so, that negative articles exceeded neutral ones by percentage.
The majority of negative articles are connected to the photo of Hayk and Nairi Sargsyan, where Hayk Sargsyan made a spelling mistake, which could not help being noticed by the news outlets. Hayk Sargsyan has also been criticized by Sergey Bagratyan, who in response to Hayk Sargsyan’s following expression “Do not shout at the people’s government,” said: “It looks like the rest of us are Turkish bashi-bazouks, and you are the people’s government.”
According to press reports, when referring to Hayk Sargsyan, Nikol Pashinyan said: “How does he behave? Tell him not to appear on my way.” The press again called Hayk Sargsyan a bodyguard and mentioned in one of the titles: “Maybe it is high time for Hayk Sargsyan to be back to his bodyguard activities as his activity in the NA will disgrace the ruling power.”
It can be concluded from this that Hayk Sargsyan’s positions in the press and in the society are not so solid, considering that Hayk Sargsyan was not included in the council during the last election: this means that Mr. Sargsyan has internal problems within his political party too.
