The “Journalists for the Future” NGO developed the “Online Journalist’s Code of Ethics” the first discussion of which took place on March 30 – April 1 in Aghveran during the training course “Online Coverage of Elections” organized by the JFF.
After some editing the Code was signed by 18 present journalists on April 1.
According to the JFF president Suren Deheryan, the “Online Journalist’s Code of Ethics” was developed alongside with journalists who co-operate with the NGO, in order to form common working approaches. But it can also be useful to anyone who wants to differ the real and qualified publishers from fake and doubtful informators.
“We emphasize the importance of our colleagues’ investment in the document improvement and we invite all the interested organizations to make their offers and comments,” says Deheryan.
The “Coverage of the Elections in New Media Platforms” training was organized in the frames of the “Invormed Voter” program with the financial support of the US Embassy in Armenia and the OSCE office in Yerevan.
The aim of the program is to encourage free and transparent elections supporting increase of the awareness of Armenia’s regional voters and their active participation in Parliamentary elections in May, 2012.
The “Journalists for the Future” NGO developed the “Online Journalist’s Code of Ethics” the first discussion of which took place on March 30 – April 1 in Aghveran during the training course “Online Coverage of Elections” organized by the JFF.
After some editing the Code was signed by 18 present journalists on April 1.
According to the JFF president Suren Deheryan, the “Online Journalist’s Code of Ethics” was developed alongside with journalists who co-operate with the NGO, in order to form common working approaches. But it can also be useful to anyone who wants to differ the real and qualified publishers from fake and doubtful informators.
“We emphasize the importance of our colleagues’ investment in the document improvement and we invite all the interested organizations to make their offers and comments,” says Deheryan.
The “Coverage of the Elections in New Media Platforms” training was organized in the frames of the “Invormed Voter” program with the financial support of the US Embassy in Armenia and the OSCE office in Yerevan.
The aim of the program is to encourage free and transparent elections supporting increase of the awareness of Armenia’s regional voters and their active participation in Parliamentary elections in May, 2012.
[[wysiwyg_imageupload:142:]]In the course of the three-day training, the participants were presented “The Peculiarities of Election Coverage”, “The Ethics, Rights and Duties of Journalists during Elections”, “The Legal Regulation of Electoral Process” and other topics.
One of the participants – Gagik Aghbalyan, who is the regional correspondent of the “Haykakan Zhamanak” daily in Tavush Marz, is interested in the rights of journalists during elections.
“We – journalists, are fond of speaking about the rights, we try to prove something and sometimes we cross the line,” says Gagik and adds, “the voter and the candidate have their rights too, and the journalists should not cross that line. The knowledge given by the trainer is very important.”
The only civil journalist participating in the training, Arsen Vardanyan from Gyumri, who is planning not only to vote in the course of the elections but also to cover them in his private blog and social networks, agrees with Gagik:
“The misled electorate is going to increase in Gyumri as the media work deficiently and supply information based on press releases or press conferences only. But there is no one to show that the given information has nothing in common with reality,” says Arsen.
Arsen emphasized not only the knowledge he gained but also the opportunity to communicate with experienced people.
The participants received thematic literature provided by the OCSE Yerevan office, the Central Electoral Commission and the “Internews” Armenia.
In the frames of the “Informed Voter” program, a regional news platform Ditaket.am and an interactive platform Irazek.am telling about electoral order will be available online soon.
Source: JNews.am