The mission of the Media Program is to help establish the independent media community to meet the contemporary requirements of information exchange and media coverage of society development challenges.
- Content
- Needs Assessment
- The recent Media situation
- Active media organizations and partners
- Program development in 1999-2001
- Outlines of Media program strategy of OSI-AF in 2002
- Support of free media market
- Legal protection and Defense of Journalists
- Preparation for law reforms and legal education
- Professional and other training
A. Needs Assessment
1. The recent Media situation is characterized by some changes of the government tactics to keep the independent media under their constant control. If the previous impact was more direct pressure like bringing suites against the independent media, now it is more economic pressure than administrative. Government keeps such an influential tool as being the only source of printing capacity. By introducing the taxation code since the beginning of new year the authorities raised the price of newsprint up to $ 1000 per ton. This has been coupled by the general economic depression, characterized by the decline of medium and small private business. The case is that many newspapers used to get a considerable part of their incomes from advertisements placed by these business circles. Newspapers suffered essential losses and were constrained to reduce their staff. Usually they are very reluctant to send the people to training and try to keep their key staff members concentrated on their every day duties.
On the other hand the government continues its efforts to create the legal conditions for stronger control. Some last amendments to the legislation aimed at extending the supervision over the media under the plea of protection of state secrets and security. However the admission of Azerbaijan to CoE requested stronger commitments of the government to provide more favorable conditions for freedom of expression. That is why the government recognizes the deficiency of the effective legislation and declared its readiness to cooperate with the European institutions and local NGO-s for the sake of its improvement. Some initiatives have already started, Yeni Nasil and RUH have been invited to prepare the alternative law drafts for print media and electronic media separately.
The most recent change in media situation is the President's decree on the liquidation of the Ministry of Information and Press. According to the requirements of the harmonization of the government reforms to fit the European standards committed by Azerbaijan under the admission to European Council a Public Council on Media should be established to provide the monitoring and regulation of the interaction between the people and media in the country. However a tendency is witnessed to establish such Council as a simple reorganization of the Ministry just under the different name. The clear understanding of that Council's mission and the best ways of its establishment and activities do not exist in both in media community and in the government and society generally.
Independent media market.
Print media.
Independent media in Azerbaijan as in any of the countries of the former Soviet Union are the influential factor for building civil society and democracy. Alternative media infrastructures established in the country at the early stage of the independence provided alternative information resources and diversified the political thinking and social activities. The most sensible achievement of independent media sector is that a number of non-government newspapers keep essentially prior position on readership index versus the government press. According to official statistics the overall circulation of the government and pro-government press is up to 30,000 of which only two leading officials are steadily published on daily basis, whereas the opposition inclined and independent print media circulation is about three times bigger. This enables to state that the initial institutional establishment phase has already been passed. However an independent media market is far from being successfully formed due to the following conditions:
There is no independent newspaper regularly published in the regions of Azerbaijan;
The distribution facilities are almost entirely under the government control;
The government owned printing house is a single one with the sufficient technical capacity to be used by all newspapers including the independent media.
The electronic media.
In a country, where the per capita income of the majority of the people is under the required minimum cost of life, TV programs stay the most influential source of information. However the only TV station to cover the whole territory of Azerbaijan is a governmental AzTV- 1, another state channel AzTV-2 as well as ostensibly independent Baku based TV stations, numbered now of five channels, are broadcasting over the Baku city and its surroundings. Government tries to keep the electronic media resources under its strict control:
It does not provide the frequencies for the existing independent TV stations to broadcast outside of Baku;
Among the opened 11 regional TV stations only one in Canja has managed to get a broadcasting licence, but still does not differ from others airing under the permanent menace of closure;
Government repeatedly demonstrated its readiness to censor the existing broadcasters by using such tools as power supply, taxation burden, defamation suits.
Other media resources.
There are about 15 news agencies in Azerbaijan of which only seven, or eight maintain the regular information services. The largest Agency is an independent "Turan" dominating even over the government agency Azertaj.
Three most popular Russian channels (ORT, NTV, and RTR) as well as four Turkish channels are broadcasting without any restrictions.
In journalist education field the school of journalism under the Baku State University should be mentioned. The teaching resources of the school are rather poor, text books are mainly inherited from the previous era, the practicability of the knowledge and subjects taught to students is low, the faculty needs professional training, the curricular should be updated.
2. Active media organizations and partners
Local entities. The non-government media activities are executed by a good deal of organizations with different profiles. The first to be mentioned are the professional associations of the media people.
Azerbaijan Journalists Union (AJU). President - Haji Hajiyev. Formally it is a biggest trade union of Azerbaijani journalists alleged to hold 2,800 members. It is a remnant of the previous Soviet trade union system with rather awkward practice of activities. AJU has not received any financing from outside organizations. In the meantime all observers report that Haji Hajiyev is an honest person with a principal position on media development.
Trade Union of Journalist (TUJO). - President Azer Hasret. The organization is well known by its activity of organizing training and seminars for journalist and international campaign to protect journalists' rights. A number of grants from international foundations have been received and imlemented by TUJO.
Committee to protect journalists "RUH". Director - Aflatun Amashov. The Committee has good records as an executor of a good deal of grants received from various foundations. The scope of activities is rather wide: legal consultation and journalists protection, publication of useful journalists education materials, professional training and seminars.
Yeni Nasil Association of Journalists. President -Arif Aliyev. It is one of the most active professional organization coordinating the public activity and professional development of Journalists. The issues of professional development , commercial stimulation of media coordination of social actvities of media organizations are the mainstream concerns of Yeni Nasil.
Baku Press Club. A group of independent newspapers organized BPC as an important tool of facilitation of coordination and publicity of their public initiatives as well as the initiative of other civil society resources of the country. BPC turned to play an important role as a team providing good space and facilitation of many of public events and journalist movement.
Editors' Council. This body is established by the editors of six leading independent newspapers to serve the purpose of cooperation and coordination. It has proved its importance as an institute of operational response to the changing media situation. Editors' council managed to get a sufficient level of mobilization of the independent media resources for production and market challenges, for journalists rights protection.
Article 19 This institution has been founded by newspaper editors to struggle against provisions of the Azerbaijani media law for rolling back the publication licence on triple convictions of defamation. Ironically the number of that article in Azerbaijani media law is 19, like the number of the article in the Declaration of Human rights providing the freedom of speech.
Besides these professional journalist organizations there is a number of NGO closely involved in media development in Azerbaijan. One can mention the following ones experienced in civic activities and grant implementation.
Free Person Human Rights Society. Director - Sabuhi Djafarov. The Society was founded several years ago by independent journalists, and was officially registered in October 1998. The goal of the organization is to support the formation of a just state and civil society through the defense of human rights, the development of a culture of active citizenship, and the attraction of citizens to participation in public life.
Legal Education Society. President Intigam Aliyev. The society provides legal trainings information and legal support to the vulnerable social groups and young lawyers.
"Ganun" independent periodical on legal issues. Its Editor Shahbaz Huduoghlu is renown in journalist circles as a consistent defender of journalist rights at court investigations.
Human Rights Center of Azerbaijan. Director - Eldar Zeynalov. Among the activities of the Centre the monitoring of media and journalist human rights and the maintenance of the appropriate electronic dissemination list is worth to be mentioned.
The following International organizations could act as partners and possible co-financiers:
Westminster Foundation for Democracy - is coordinated through British Embassy in Azerbaijan. WFD funded a couple of projects on journalist rights protection and freedom of expression.
Democracy and Civil Society Commission of the Embassy of the USA to Azerbaijan. The Commission has supported a project on photojournalism and they are considering a possibility to bring a western professional in residence in television. A number of media-related projects are under consideration. The position of the embassy is to be as cautious in this field as possible, because the majority of media are actually more politicized than it is used to be with the independent ones.
Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs/ Public Diplomacy Office of US State Department. The US Embassy activities in media field are practically implemented by this structure, which has replaced the previous USIS office.
National Endowment for Democracy. Supports the democracy initiatives in various fields over the world. In the South Caucasus and Azerbaijan in particular awarded a number of grants including that to Yeni Nesil worked with citizens on human and civil rights issues and access to information.
ISAR implemented a seminar on media development in regions via RUH Committee and also give attention to the issuea of media-NGO relations, and development of media NGO-s in capital and the regions of Azerbaijan.
OSCE mission in Azerbaijan. They also consider media as one of the directions of their supportive activity. The contact person is Mr. Ulrich Rainer, Democratization officer.
Internews. An international media supporting organization, fostering the establishment of free media market and interregional exchange of information and cooperation. They mainly focus on the electronic media support and journalists rights protection.
3. Program development in 1999-2001
Media program of OSI-AF has been recently detached from the Law program. Its activity up to now was along the following lines.
- Legal education and legal support of journalists:
- RUH Committee has been awarded a grant on conducting courses on legal education of journalists
- The project is expected on the establishment of Journalists Legal Support Fund
- Providing the wide access to information for independent journalists
- Ayna Matbu Evi Publishers was awarded a grant on the establishment of Media materials electronic archive
- Establishment of the independent media market:
- an expert on printing press technologies has been invited to Baku to get familiarized and give his recommendations on the establishment of a private printing house
- Professional training for journalists:
- This area was restricted by providing the journalists community with the information on available courses conducted by various international media institutions and occasional supporting of journalist to go to media training organized by their professional unite in the West.
- Faculty training and curricula development
- Just a preliminary needs assessment has been made to reveal the critical situation with education facilities and practices
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