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Azerbaijani media catches at straw: four tips to avoid swallowing information bait

Armenpress 18:53, 2 August, 2014

YEREVAN, AUGUST 2, ARMENPRESS. How correct is it to translate the information of the Azerbaijani media and without checking to spread it to the reader? What principles should be applied while providing information? How “not to swallow” the enemy's information bait? "Armenpress" has spoken with the media industry experts on these questions and figured out what should be expected in the near future from the Azerbaijani information platform, and listened to the opinions on the work of the Armenian and Azerbaijani mass media.

Samvel Martirosyan, information security expert, believes that it is always possible to use the Azerbaijani media as a source, but only after checking the information. "If we look what kind of information they spread yesterday and today, we will see that they are spreading a large amount of deliberate misinformation.

Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan, political analyst, times.am website editor, noted that previously it had been much more dangerous to refer to the Azerbaijani sources. "At present we can say that these sources are used not by the media, but by the news websites. These are small sites that are cheap and they try to enjoy populist authority by spreading this kind of materials, trying to attract visitors to their sites," said Hrant Melik- Shahnazaryan, adding that such sites cannot be named media.

Aram Ananyan, Director of “Armenpress" News Agency, stresses that the logic of the activities of the Azerbaijani press in recent days suggests that they do not even hesitate to spread obvious fabrication and lie. "Such actions have a distinct purpose to mislead and misinform the society and in this respect it is important that our colleagues follow the simple rules of information "hygiene". It should be noted that publishing unverified information in such situations also contradicts the simplest rules of professional ethics, because the events taking place are worthy of more comprehensive and objective coverage," said Aram Ananyan.

Ananyan considered noteworthy the creation of the fake account of allegedly Armenian political scientist and the dissemination of disinformation through him. It had one purpose - to turn the reality upside down, which, however, failed. Referring to the Armenian mass media activities, Ananyan highlighted the fact that in any situation the most important principle of getting information should be reliability. "In this regard, to have different political views does not mean you have to sacrifice the basic principle - reliability. This is not the issue which should be used to solve some problems,"- said Ananyan.

Researcher in the field of propaganda Karen Vrtanesyan notes that he has observed some changes in the Azerbaijani press. According to him, in contrast to the previous cases during the recent intelligence and sabotage operations the Azerbaijani media has published information about their losses. "As for the noise around the fake account of the Armenian political scientist, the matter was resolved very quickly, and once again it displayed that the Azerbaijanis are trying to catch at a straw. Regarding the work of the Armenian media, the quality is much improved. And both in terms of coverage and in terms of reliability of the materials the Armenian media is at a higher level than the Azerbaijani” - said Karen Vrtanesyan.



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