Mr. Avetikyan, today the newspapers are mostly party oriented. We don't have independent newspapers, in the true sense of not being dependent on the opposition, the government, or financial groups. Do you think the conditions for the development of an independent media existed at the beginning of the 1990's? If so, then why didn't it take place?

It's true that our newspaper was started by the Ramkavar Azatakan Party, but there is one mistake that I always correct. The party decided this newspaper had to be independent. I, and the majority of the founders, belong to the party and that's the extent to which the newspaper is connected to the party. In other words, the newspaper is not connected to the party financially or administratively. For instance, the party can't fire the editor of the newspaper. The party can't intervene in the newspaper's affairs, or hire or fire a journalist.

But because our other two periodicals don't exist, from election to election our newspaper becomes more party oriented, because we voluntarily take on that duty. During the last presidential and parliamentary elections, I saw that too many of our papers were being returned unsold, so I won't do that again. It's not good from a business perspective. The newspaper is a business; it provides a product which has to be read. I'll try not to do anything like that again. During the elections there was one moment when we had 70% returns. Till now, I haven't been able to recover that loss.

I don't agree with you: most present-day newspapers are not party-oriented. Until 1994, there were a lot of party-oriented newspapers. But today people don't want a party-oriented paper. In 1993 to1994, newspapers were affordable, so people would take a couple of newspapers and come to their own conclusions based on diverse information. In the late fall of '93 when the economic blockade of Armenia started, people's purchasing capacity decreased and they could no longer afford three or four newspapers-that would have been be a luxury, as it still is now. Most readers want to have an independent newspaper because the party-oriented ones will be biased. Today people read either Azg , Haykakan Zhamanak , or Aravot, and therefore they don't want to read a newspaper that's biased.

In that case I'll change my question. There are newspapers that pretend to be independent but actually serve certain political parties.

Not certain political parties but political groups. In that sense you're right. But what can we do? I don't accept it, especially when they claim they're independent but at the same time they preach a totally different thing. It could be worse though: sometimes they serve an individual and not even a political group. There are some newspapers that are paid by certain political powers not to write anything, either good or bad, about them.

In other words, they buy the silence of the newspaper?

Yes. It's terrible.

What's the reason for it? The newspapers can't be financially independent and exist based on their income from advertising?

Finances decide everything. Our newspapers were created with little material capital. The initial capital of Azgwas $1,000. Mihran Minasyan, one of the founders of the newspaper, gave me that amount to publish the paper. At that time, that was enough because the circulation of the newspaper was more than 40,000 and we had a good income. But after '93-'94, many newspapers couldn't hold on anymore. To do business, you have to follow the rules of business, meaning capital investments have to be made. The founders have to understand that they won't have any income for three months, there will be some income after six months, and after two years expenses and income will be balanced. You have to have a business plan, some kind of a program. There isn't a single newspaper in Armenia that has worked this way. Who are the people who establish newspapers? Former journalists, which means they are not businessmen. We will have real newspapers when businessmen start them.

But Mr. Avetikyan, right now there are businessmen who are interested in owning media outlets. Businessmen have become the owners of TV stations. This shows that they are interested in making investments in the press. But it turns out that they acquire these media outlets to for their own political and clan interests.

Because in Armenia business is also political. It's connected with political groups. When this is all cleaned up, and it should be cleaned up because business has some harsh rules, the press will develop, too. The times of amassing a fortune have passed. Of course, big business is interested in politics all over the world, but at that time, their own gain should be the main issue. Now there is no businessman here in Armenia who'd create a new newspaper or purchase an old one and say, "We should all work together because I want this newspaper to sell to make money."

In that case how do you explain the appearance of new weeklies like 168 Zham and Yerrord Uzh ?

They're conditional, too. They were started by people who have some future ambitions or issues. Here's nothing strange about it. They're trying to do something through those newspapers. There is also the other side: they start a newspaper thinking that some power will come and offer to support it, especially when the newspapers are published on the eve of elections. It wasn't a coincidence that the newspaper Ayzhm came back into print right before the elections. We congratulated them on the event of their republication, but also wrote that we hoped that the newspaper would continue to be published after the elections, even though we knew very well it wasn't going to happen. It worked for something like six months because it's no secret that Vazgen Manukyan had a sum of money. After the elections, that paper closed, too. This way, the newspapers and the newspaper culture are corrupted and the newspapers become conditional and temporary. That's why the reader doesn't trust us to this day. We have a suspicious reader who reads in between the lines, which is hard for the government as well.

Once you said that there was a generally-held opinion of the media outlets-when they criticize someone, people wonder who ordered it. Is it wrong to think the media take orders?

No. There are grounds to think so and the media bear the blame for it themselves. There are three factors here-an entire complex. We have many media outlets and journalists who write one thing and then go back and write a totally different thing when they receive the necessary sum, or they write some special thing. Once the director of HSBC Bank told me that one of the newspapers had published something against the bank and another journalist from the same newspaper came to the director and told him he'd write an article against the other one for $200. The director kicked the journalist out. Yes, they write for money. There is one newspaper whose editor says, "Pay us and we'll write anything you want."

The second factor is that our newspapers don't check their information. Sometimes it isn't possible to check it from the 2 nd or 3 rd source, it happens at our paper too, though I don't have any problem retracting incorrect information. But providing accurate information is not the main problem for our newspapers. So when they publish the information and the next day it comes out that it wasn't correct, the paper doesn't say, "Reader, I apologize for printing incorrect information, it won't happen again."

Our newspapers should do that but they don't, unless they're forced to. Do you remember what happened with Aravot and the Central Bank? Aravot printed a retraction two times, which was unacceptable, saying that everything they had written was wrong, but at least 50% of it was true. But as they say, they were "brought to their knees" and that's why they printed the retraction. If you were going to do that, why did you publish that information "without checking?" Or just the way they give the information-they put the final conclusions at the beginning, and the reader sees that. The reader doesn't trust us, seeing things like that. The period of time that corrupts us the worst are the elections. We aren't innocent either, nor are others. Here, like it or not, we have to talk about television. Today the TV companies do not provide the informational life of Armenia . The press does it instead. The TV is directly managed from one office, that's why the people do not believe in it.

Today certain companies or individuals own a couple of media outlets. Holdings and media corporations are formed. How do you view this process of centralizing the media?

There are too many television companies in Armenia for such a small field. The companies feel it, and that's why they want to become more powerful and strengthen their positions if possible. In order to achieve a leading position, financial means are needed, that's why the oligarchs are involved in the TV companies. H1 has created a huge oligarchy by getting a couple of channels for itself with state money. If the informational field of Armenia were organized, that wouldn't happen. H1 has taken all the monopolies: the advertising market, and exclusive interviews, although it does a very bad job even in those conditions. Let's take the newspapersHayastani Hanrapetutyun and Respublika Armenii. "

I don't have a problem with individuals, but those newspapers don't have the right to compete with others. Look at the advertisements in Hayastani Hanrapetutyun ; most of the announcements are given to the newspaper. This means that Hayastani Hanrapetutyun is in unequal competition with Azg and other newspapers, because it doesn't have to think about its future, if it's in debt or not, because the state, which is us, the taxpayers, will take care of it. We pay to maintain Hayastani Hanrapetutyun . That's nonsense. Let it go and get burdened like us and we'll see whether it manages to hold on or not.

Do you agree the television is now totally controlled by the government?

Yes, in terms of news coverage, yes.

Is it possible that because of the influence of the press, political changes might occur in the country, or an official might be fired as result of criticism by the press?

No, not as long as public opinion plays no role in the matter of who the politicians are. In Armenia , public opinion does not predetermine the results of elections. It wouldn't make sense, as long as people at the top are drawing up the election figures, and it will continue this way until we have normal elections here in Armenia . In order to have normal elections, people should be incorruptible.

The ambassador of Greece said that that they had the same situation thirty years ago. During the parliamentary elections, a candidate would walk around a neighborhood, go into the shops and stalls, pay the debts of all the people who lived in the neighborhood and tell them to let the people know that he did it. In other words, they bought the votes. The same method and the administrative method work here. So the press will not have an influence until the problem of elections is solved.

It turns out that the press has been left out of every process.

Yes. The press only gets used. It isn't performing its main function, so the newspapers spend their time making each other look bad, to neutralize the competition.