{"id":1321,"date":"2012-10-01T18:56:00","date_gmt":"2012-10-01T18:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mediaethics.am\/?p=1321"},"modified":"2024-08-30T18:58:52","modified_gmt":"2024-08-30T18:58:52","slug":"meo-and-idc-joint-expert-conclusion-of-october-1-2012-on-the-complaint-of-anahit-bakhshian-versus-chorrord-inknishkhanutiun-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mediaethics.am\/en\/expert-conclusion\/meo-and-idc-joint-expert-conclusion-of-october-1-2012-on-the-complaint-of-anahit-bakhshian-versus-chorrord-inknishkhanutiun-newspaper\/","title":{"rendered":"MEO and IDC Joint Expert Conclusion of October 1, 2012\u00a0on the complaint of\u00a0Anahit Bakhshian versus \u201cChorrord Inknishkhanutiun\u201d newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Background of the Issue: <\/strong>Anahit Bakhshian, Deputy Director of the National Education Institute, addressed a complaint to the MEO regarding the articles published on the website of \u201cChorrord Inknishkhanutiun\u201d newspaper: \u201cBenzin Rubo and Anahit Bakhshian\u201d (May 4, 2012), \u201c \u2018Heritage\u2019s\u2019 Conspirator\u201d (June 15, 2012) and \u201cWho Are Those Shrunk into Corner?\u201d (July 5, 2012). According to Anahit Bakhshian, the above listed articles contained insulting and libelous statements about her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the complaint touched upon both professional ethics and legal matters, the MEO and the Information Disputes Council came up with a joint expert conclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conclusion noted that since Anahit Bakhshian had not requested a reply or a refutation from \u201cChorrord Inknishkhanutiun\u201d newspaper, it would have been reasonable if she made use of this right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As regards the compliance of disputed articles to ethical norms, the MEO and the IDC held violations of the Code of Conduct of Media Representatives<\/a> in all three of them. Thus, the articles presented some facts about Anahit Bakhshian. Moreover, two of these articles referred to anonymous sources that quoted some statements allegedly made by Anahit Bakhshian. At the same time, the newspaper did not make any efforts to get some comments from Anahit Bakhshian herself. In this regard, Article 1.1 of the Code stresses: \u201cPrior to publishing, to check the accuracy of information from any source, not to conceal and not to distort facts (\u2026)\u201d. Article 1.2 highlights the need to mention about the inability of verifying facts for an information of public significance, and Article 1.3 obliges the media \u201cto rely on accurate facts when making analysis and comment\u201d. Besides, from a journalistic ethics perspective it is not acceptable that the articles used \u201ccirculating rumors\u201d as source of information. This contradicts the provisions of Chapter 2 of the Code, \u201cIntegrity in Relations with Sources of Information\u201d, the conclusion pointed out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As regards the legal analysis of the disputed articles, the conclusion stressed that since the limits of critics towards political figures are wider, than in case of private ones, there is an increased level of protection of articles that are of public interest (until recently Anahit Bakhshian was deputy of RA National Assembly). In this sense, the information, published in the \u201cChorrord Inknishkhanutiun\u201d articles of June 15 and July 5, 2012, \u201cis not of a discrediting nature and even if it turns out that the information is not accurate, the articles cannot be assessed as defamatory\u201d. Meanwhile, the MEO and IDC found that the May 4, 2012 article contained discrediting information, and thus the media should have proved its accuracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, the MEO and IDC reminded that courts should be a last resort, and one should seek there remedies when all the other measures are exhausted (2012\u0569. \u0570\u0578\u056f\u057f\u0565\u0574\u0562\u0565\u0580\u056b 1-\u056b \u0570\u0561\u0574\u0561\u057f\u0565\u0572 \u0583\u0578\u0580\u0571\u0561\u0563\u056b\u057f\u0561\u056f\u0561\u0576 \u0565\u0566\u0580\u0561\u056f\u0561\u0581\u0578\u0582\u0569\u0575\u0578\u0582\u0576\u0568<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Background of the Issue: Anahit Bakhshian, Deputy Director of the National Education Institute, addressed a complaint to the MEO regarding the articles published on the website of \u201cChorrord Inknishkhanutiun\u201d newspaper: \u201cBenzin Rubo and Anahit Bakhshian\u201d (May 4, 2012), \u201c \u2018Heritage\u2019s\u2019 Conspirator\u201d (June 15, 2012) and \u201cWho Are Those Shrunk into Corner?\u201d (July 5, 2012). According to… Read More »MEO and IDC Joint Expert Conclusion of October 1, 2012\u00a0on the complaint of\u00a0Anahit Bakhshian versus \u201cChorrord Inknishkhanutiun\u201d newspaper<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-expert-conclusion"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"neve-blog":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Alexander Martirosyan","author_link":"https:\/\/mediaethics.am\/en\/author\/alex\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Background of the Issue: Anahit Bakhshian, Deputy Director of the National Education Institute, addressed a complaint to the MEO regarding the articles published on the website of \u201cChorrord Inknishkhanutiun\u201d newspaper: \u201cBenzin Rubo and Anahit Bakhshian\u201d (May 4, 2012), \u201c \u2018Heritage\u2019s\u2019 Conspirator\u201d (June 15, 2012) and \u201cWho Are Those Shrunk into Corner?\u201d (July 5, 2012). According to… Read…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediaethics.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediaethics.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediaethics.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediaethics.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediaethics.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1321"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mediaethics.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1324,"href":"https:\/\/mediaethics.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1321\/revisions\/1324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediaethics.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediaethics.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediaethics.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}