Activity Details (ID# 20471)

Activity Synopsis

The aim of this seminar was to improve the standard of election reporting and to change the perspectives of editors and reporters in order to focus more on:

- The needs of the voters rather than the needs of politicians and parties.
- The issues which dominate the agenda of the voters.
- The consequences of politics and law making instead of just reporting from press conferences.
- Seeking solutions to the major problems of society instead of just pointing out the problems.
- Engaging the voters directly in the election coverage and to seek interactivity between voters, politicians and media
- Political content rather than strategy, spin and how the politicians are performing in the campaign
 

In a mixture of short lectures, concrete examples of election coverage from the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, debates and practical assignments, the seminar aimed to bring the concept of a media election coverage based on the needs of the voters closer to the participants.

The participants were all active and engaged and worked very hard and concentrated with the assignments they were given.

The practical assignments were as follows:
• Ways of identifying the agenda of the citizens
• Working with ideas on how to engage voters more in the election coverage and how to create more interactivity between media, politicians and voters
• Developing an election relevant public journalism project with the aim of pointing out solutions to one of the important day-to-day problems of Armenian citizens.

However, the participants also reported that journalists in Armenia often cannot follow standards of fair, balanced and impartial news coverage if the owners of their media outlet demands a one-sided reporting of them.

Despite these constraints the participants were very open to new ideas and to the democratic demands of election reporting as formulated by the Council of Europe and other international organizations.
 

A final assessment seminar on the quality of the media coverage during the elections will be held after the elections, in March 2008. 

Mr Henrik Keith Hansen, Head of Foreign, Political & Business Desk, Danish Broadcasting Corporation