The situation in the Azerbaijani media is getting worse, stated the director of the Turan news agency Mehman Aliyev on the eve of the National Press Day, which was celebrated on July 22. In his view, negative trends have intensified over the past year.
Media is increasingly losing its influence, and the advertising market has dropped by half.
Thus, the volume of advertising on all media for the past year amounted to 4 million manats. Of this amount, 3.5 million manat fell on TV channels. The remaining 500 thousand – on-line media, print media and radio.
“This is a meager amount, and it is impossible to maintain and develop media with this sum.
On the other hand, this is an indicator that the media has very small readership and viewers. Therefore, companies do not give advertising or provide it at low prices,” he said. Against this background, the activity of social networks is expanding, and today it can be stated that social media prevails over traditional media in its influence.
What is the situation with the release of arrested journalists? Answering this question, Aliyev said that civil society is making efforts to solve this problem: it conducts events, makes statements, calls are made. However, the Azerbaijani government continues the policy of preserving monopoly and political control over Media.
“In such a situation it is very difficult to obtain the release of journalists, to prevent further arrests. The authorities are not interested in finding journalists’ killers, bringing them to court,” he said. Aliyev also criticized the government’s response to the coverage of energy blackout sites and Ganja events.
“lawsuits are filed against a number of sites, editors are brought to the investigation, websites are blocked. Media is accused of disseminating untruthful information, exacerbating the situation.
However, the state bears responsibility for such a situation. There is a commission for emergency situations, headed by the vice-premier in the government.
The commission was to immediately assemble and timely inform the public and the media. This was not done, and therefore various rumors and publications from social networks have been spread. Someone saw something, heard … and so on.
Journalists work with what they have. The government, not journalists, is responsible for this situation,” Aliyev said. Answering the question on ways to solve media problems, Aliyev said that the quality of Azerbaijani media, in comparison with foreign media, fell sharply. Level content, printing and print media design is extremely low. In these issues the Azerbaijani media are much inferior to their Turkish counterparts. With the current advertising market and the economic situation, it is not necessary to talk about the development of the media.
As for changing the situation, we must start with legislation. The deterioration of the situation began precisely with the tightening and restriction of legislation. So, in recent years, the legislation on the media and the Internet has been made many restrictions.
“We need to take measures to improve the economic condition of the media, so that it develops in an environment of normal competition. The issue of access to information and media work in emergency situations was resolved,” he said.
Aliyev also pointed to the need to adopt a law on defamation, which would eliminate the possibility of arresting journalists for their professional activities. “Finally, taking into account the fact that the media serves the role of communication between the state and society, it is necessary to establish normal, healthy relations between the authorities and the press. This is very important, “Aliyev noted.