The 2nd President of the Republic of Armenia, Robert Kocharian, held a press conference today, which lasted approximately 2 hours and 26 minutes. During that time, Kocharyan answered the questions of 27 media. During the press conference, questions were raised by the Public TV Company, “Haykakan Deshti” TV channel, “Hayeli.am”,
“Aravot.am”, “Sputnik Armenia”, “Civilnet”, “Azatutyun Radio”, “Para”. tv”, “168 Hours”, “Irakanum.am”, “Mediahub”, “Pastinfo”, “Hraparak daily”, “Yerkir Media”, “Politik.am”, “Zhoghovurd” daily”, “Kentron” TV company, “Yerevan Today”, “Livenews.am”, “Factor.am”, “Tert.am”, “Armenpress”, “Antifake.am” , “Panorama.am”, “Channel 5”, “24 news”, Public Radio.
Bagrat Mikoyan, the head of Kocharyan’s office, did not say how many media outlets were accredited to Kocharyan’s press conference. “I won’t say the number, because I have never counted the number of journalists, and I have never counted the mass media.” We asked: the official mass media. Did “Freenews”, “Araratnews”, “Armtimes.com”, “Civic.am” apply for accreditation at Kocharyan’s press conference? “The names of these media outlets are unfamiliar to me, I don’t know such media outlets, the list was decided by the office,” answered Mikoyan. We also asked if all the applied media were included in the list, he said again that “the list was decided by the office.” The fact that “Civic.am” was not allowed to participate caused a stir at the previous press conference.
It is interesting that Robert Kocharyan, who is considered to be a more closed figure and does not like journalists, has chosen a democratic way to communicate with the public, unlike Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who regularly claims that “Armenia is a bastion of democracy”, “the press is freer than ever.” etc. Kocharyan, among other media, was asked questions by the journalists of the Public TV and Public Radio, as well as the state news agency “Armenpress”, while Nikol Pashinyan has recently held a “press conference” in the format he invented, online, during which not all the questions are raised. Almost all leading Armenian media boycotted the last press conference. The mass media had to send their questions to the government in advance, and here they had to decide which question to read and which not to. and as a rule, Pashinyan’s staff removed all unwanted questions, unnecessarily edited or combined them, so that Pashinyan could say what he wanted and avoid the questions he did not want to answer. By the way, Pashinyan explained his avoidance of direct contact with journalists not by the fact that he does not have the answers to the questions to be raised, but by the fact that journalists can organize a boycott on the spot, or “cover the camera with their breasts”, etc.