From March 5 to March 11, 2020, the Public Television of Armenia allocated 193 minutes 51 seconds of its air to the topic of the constitutional referendum, 53 minutes 8 seconds of which were allocated to the “NO” campaign, 109 minutes 35 seconds to the “YES” campaign and 31 minutes 8 seconds were neutral remarks. The Public TV also aired “YES” and “NO” campaign video clips of up to 1-minute duration each.
During the monitoring period Public Television, operating at the expense of taxpayers did not address the speech delivered by Suren Papikyan, the Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure at the National Assembly, and “Bright Armenia” fraction member Gevorg Gorgisyan’s remark which followed the above-mentioned speech.
According to Gorgisyan, Suren Papikyan violated the law and carried out a “Yes” campaign from the NA platform when performing his official duties. Arsen Babayan, a lawyer, representative of the “No” side of the campaign stated the following regarding this issue: “The possible “explanation” that the fact occurred after 6 PM, therefore, the propaganda was permissible, is completely ungrounded, because the person was actually performing his duties as a state official.” Arsen Babayan added that he discussed the matter with Central Electoral Commission (CEC) Chairman Tigran Mukuchyan who informed that the cases of the apparent violations are in their spotlight.
“Media Advocate” Initiative states that Public Television, operating at the expense of taxpayers, has allocated twice as much time to the YES campaign during the third week of the April 5 constitutional referendum campaign and did not cover the NA incident of a public interest. That is, Public TV continued its biased approach towards the authorities, which contradicts to the operational obligations and professional ethics of the publicly funded TV channel.
