In the five years that it has been publishing, the Haykakan Zhamanak daily newspaper has developed efficient, clear-cut mechanisms of collecting information, and verifying it from several sources in order to protect itself against potential lawsuits. Each journalist has built up his or her own reliable sources of information, and a circle of people has taken shape that helps check facts and provides information on current and future developments.

But that doesn’t mean it’s easy for the independent newspaper, which is considered oppositional, to get the information it needs from the state. Editor-in-chief Nikol Pashinyan maintains that there is no problem getting information, there are only reporters who don’t know how to do their job, how to get bureaucrats to provide the information they need. Reporters Hayk Gevorgyan, Naira Zohrabyan and Avetis Babadjanyan share his view-they can’t recall any instance when they were unable to get information from a government official or state agency.

Vahagn Hovakimyan is the Haykakan Zhamanak reporter who has encountered most resistance from state bureaucrats. Perhaps this is because he doesn’t cover a specific beat, but is expected to be anywhere and everywhere, covering daily events, emergency situations and numerous unforeseen or unplanned issues. Hovakimyan recently spent several weeks trying to obtain information on grain imported to Armenia from the Customs Department. The agency refused to provide the information in question, although press officer Nelli Manucharyan had promised it beforehand. After checking with her boss, Armen Avetisyan, she apologized, saying, “The boss prohibits providing the information.” Hovakimyan believes that in such situations it’s not so much that the bureaucrats refuse to give information, but that they hope to draw the process out until the problem solves itself, or loses its urgency.

Hovakimyan says that another bastion of silence is the Central Election Commission (CEC). Its building was even remodeled and its departments rearranged so as to limit journalists’ access and prevent them from doing their job. It seemed clear that the biographies of presidential candidates biographies could not be considered secrets to be denied to reporters. But the CEC published the candidates’ biographies in the state-run daily newspaper Republic of Armenia, with which it has a special agreement, and refused to give the texts to other media outlets. Instead, it proposed that they read the biographies in Republic of Armenia, thereby giving the state-run paper an unfair advantage over the independents. Hovakimyan had to call each candidate’s headquarters for the information in question, a waste of time and effort that caused him to reflect on the lack of privilege accorded to independent journalists.

During the first round of the presidential election, the CEC didn’t distribute any information for ten hours, and journalists were isolated in a separate section of the first floor, prohibited from the upper floors where CEC members were protected by the police.

All attempts by reporters to break through were unsuccessful. After ten hours with no information, they resorted to guesswork, with all its attendant risks. The official silence was a gross violation of law, since according to the Electoral Code the CEC is required to disseminate information every three hours. Indeed, international observers present during the elections pointed to the fact that the CEC did not publish a prompt and detailed breakdown of preliminary results, contributing to further lack of confidence in the process, and recommended that in the upcoming parliamentary elections the CEC make available to the public a complete and detailed breakdown of the preliminary election results, down to he polling station level.

Another source of resentment is the Prosecutor’s Office, where press officer Gurgen Ambaryan responds to any question by saying: “I don’t know, it’s not under our jurisdiction, we don’t have such information.” But his press office is not so ill-disposed toward all media outlets-there are newspapers and TV stations that not only get the necessary information but also actively cooperate with law-enforcement agencies, and with the Prosecutor’s Office, in particular.

And there are pieces of information that are impossible to verify with any agency.

For example, neither the Ministry of Justice, nor the Prosecutor’s Office, nor the Court of Appeals was able to provide us with information on the lawsuits related to the elections - neither about the substance of cases, nor about the verdicts. We found out that such information can be obtained only through visiting each district court one by one - a task that is both physically impossible and practically unworkable, since district courts, too, are loathe to release information. In general, it is almost impossible to obtain charges or rulings in ongoing court cases. Journalists may get them from defendants’ relatives or lawyers, but never from prosecutors or judges.

If Yerevan journalists face numerous hurdles obtaining information, for reporters in the provinces it’s many times worse. Haykakan Zhamanak’s special correspondent in Gyumri, Arman Galoyan, has had particular trouble with the Mayor’s Office in Gyumri, and with the Mayor personally. The municipality seems to have made it a rule to deny him any information. The newspaper’s correspondent in the Syunik marz (province), Armen Mkrtchyan, finds that people in the provinces are very sensitive to criticism, which is one reason they are so intolerant of reporters. He recalled a recent instance in which he approached the Syunik sanitary inspector for information on an epidemic in Meghri and was told, “I will not respond to any question put by you.”

It’s too bad that bureaucrats are free to give answers like that, but this is the reality we live in.

Armine Ohanyan
Reporter for Haykakan Zhamanak