Arminfo - Armenian Newspapers

Arminfo
In July 2006 the ARMINFO News Agency celebrated its Five
Anniversary. The agency is a factual successor of the SNARK News Agency, which was established in 1991 by a group of professional journalists. Immediately after its re-registration into ARMINFO, the
agency continued expanding the sphere of "informational influence".

Today the agency is considered the most successful private project in the sphere of mass media in Armenia. It has the widest ties both inside and outside the former USSR. The agency successfully cooperates with such large media-structures as REUTERS, BBC, EUROMONEY, RBC and others. ARMINFO with its hot news from Armenia and the Transcaucasus has entered the information markets of China, Iran and Middle East as well.

The staff of the agency is especially proud of the close partner ties with the news agencies of the neighboring countries tried and tested by the time: Georgia (BLACK SEA PRESS) and Azerbaijan (TURAN).

In the internal market the agency closely cooperates with almost all the foreign diplomatic representations in Armenia, commercial banks and large companies. ARMINFO is also proud of its partner and friendly ties with such professional Armenian newspapers as "Golos Armenii," "Aravot," "Ayots Ashkhar," "Novoye Vremya," "Ayastani Anrapetutiun," "Delovoy Express."

The agency tries to be universal in its work in the full sense of the word. It covers such spheres as politics, economics, finances, sport, culture etc.. Besides, in June, 2002, ARMINFO opened a new service, news in pictures.

The ARMINFO News Agency has the following sections:

1. domestic political information

2. foreign policy

3. economic news

4. "Finances and banks," capital markets

5. social policy and sport

6. marketing and sales

7. news in pictures

ARMINFO provides some 60 information issues and about 10 pictures
daily. Besides, the agency issues a daily bulletin "Hot Line," a
bulletin "Energy in the South Caucasus and CIS states" twice in a
month, a quarterly bulletin "Tariffs and Rates of the Banking System"
and a reference bulletin "Commercial Banks of Armenia."

15 YEARS ARE NO ROUND ANNIVERSARY

The Interview of Emmanuil Mkrtchyan, director of ArmInfo News Agency, to "Golos Armenii" Newspaper

"ArmInfo" independent news agency celebrates a double anniversary: 5 years ago "ArmInfo" was established, while 10 years ago "Snark" was founded. Later it served as a basis for ArmInfo. Each person who comes to ArmInfo spends certain time in the entrance hall of the agency where the advertisements of the Armenian brands are exhibited: Fidel Castro ready to change the Cuban cigars with Armenian brandy, Winston Churchill who smiles to Stalin with a pipe in his hand at the sight of a bottle of "Dvin." You will certainly remember Stalin when you meet a kind hearted man with no moustache and a pipe in his hand in the office of the ArmInfo director. "The Fox of the Armenian Journalism," as his opponents call him for long lasting activities in the information Olympus and for his intuition to forecast the changes in the public life, refused to arrange the questions before the interview. "In my work, I am accustomed to put all the questions that arouse our interest, moreover, I am not going to do that in my own interview. Besides, the improvisations in the interview will impart more truthfulness to the conversation," Emmanuil Mkrtchyan said before our meeting.

Mr. Mkrtchyan, how did the idea of creating an independent news agency in Armenia occur to you?

In 1991 the monopoly of information belonging to "Armenpress" state agency was still preserved. The Western agencies could get only fragmentary information edited by the Soviet censorship about the events in Nagorno Karabakh. There was a big demand for independent information sources and we responded to that. In 1991 we had only one telephone and a big bulky thing called teletype. The first clients of the agency became about a dozen of foreign agencies, including Reuters, Associated Press, France Press. Thanks to the independent information from the zone of Karabakh conflict, the agency became well-known far away from Armenia.

Wasn't that frightening for a mass media source accustomed to support to sail in the open ocean?

The agency began working already during the Soviet Times, sooner in the conditions of diarchy. In 1991 diarchy was observed in Armenia. The agency was immediately accepted in the international arena, as its employees used to work in Armenpress, moreover in its international department working for TASS. We were the students of the prominent masters of the Armenian journalism. We learnt to write in a mode that would hit the international information masses.

Didn't you try to count how many journalists passed the school of journalism in your agency?

We haven't counted the journalists, but I can state that all the leading journalists of the Armenian agencies "studied" at the school of SNARK-ArmInfo, except for my colleagues from "Noyan Tapan" agency that was founded a bit later.

The image of the agency that is equally disposed to the political forces is based on your will to be more independent or on your life credo?

I always keep saying that we are not "independent," we are "neutral" with slight irony. We are the citizens of this country, and naturally, we can't be indifferent to the problems of Armenia and we can't be independent from them, but we try hard to be neutral, when the political figures begin to settle accounts with each other.

How did you deal with powerful people?

From the very first day of our work, we followed the national interests, and that was a matter of honor to report the truth about the Karabakh conflict to the international community, and the authorities didn't hinder us. It's quite another case that today our authorities became more prompt. A couple of years ago, it was quite harder to get an operative information that would refute the misinformation from Azerbaijan. Our journalistic community had asked the authorities to be more operative in this issue for several times. Even in the times of SNARK, we knew from trustworthy sources that the officials of other countries and even Heidar Aliyev used to read our news everyday. It was quite flattering for us, but also imparted more responsibility to our work. We had to write clear, balanced, trustworthy information, and which is more important to treat the work with responsibility.

How often did you have to turn to sponsors?

We have never turned to the sponsors, we lived and developed exclusively thanks to the sources earned by our work. Both the inner and the foreign donor organization didn't like our independent line. The latter like when one serves to them. We used the only grant we received for opening the web page of our agency. Till now, the site of our agency is one of the most popular information portals in Armenia, notwithstanding the fact that the grater part of our information is rendered in closed access, only for our subscribers. An information agency can have only one boss, namely, the reader, the client. One should be loyal to its reader. Although it may sound pathetic, this is a fact. Otherwise, we will contradict to ourselves and the people will stop trusting us. One can't serve two bosses, sooner or later you will be caught. The independence is very necessary for working in the information business and for representing the informational field.

How did you treat the recent statement of Musa Guliev who said that "ArmInfo news agency elaborated a program for destabilization of the situation in Azerbaijan? Is it a recognition of the special contribution of ArmInfo in the war of information?

We accepted that statement with humor, as this is not the first time that Azerbaijan puts forward such accusations against ArmInfo. In this given case, I should state that the conversation with A. Hajiev and M.Guliev wasn't planned and was held during the break for the Parliamentary Assembly of BSECO and in less than an hour it was published with slight comments. The information war is first of all the struggle against misinformation for us. You will find no irritable epithets addressed to our neighbors in our articles. We have been cooperating with Turan Azery news agency for already 12 years. When we publish the opinion of an Armenian historian that with the help of anti-Armenian propaganda Azerbaijan tries to settle the issue of the national identification of the Azeries who are mixture of Turks, Talishes, Taths, Lezgins, Kurds, we swear we do not do that in order to make these national minorities fight with each other. I don't think that we are interested in destabilization of the situation in Azerbaijan. But, in the conditions of constant militant statements and the threats from Baku, the very Azeries should remember about the Talish-Mughansky incident that took place in 1993, at the height of the war in Nagorno Karabakh. That's why one should not think that the publication stating that a new war may lead to collapse of Azerbaijan is a mere informational trick.

But, as the classic states, your truth has no mercy, thus, it is unjust.

You don't say so. I hope that Azerbaijan will be satisfied with an information war. It doubt that the new Azeri oil dollars may yield a new war. The higher are the living standards in Azerbaijan, the fewer are Azeri people that would like to fight under the suspicious slogans of "return of the former Karabakh Khanate." That's why, as compared with the majority of the Azeri Mass Media sources, we publish the information on Azerbaijan without editing the negative fragments from the whole contest. We are not jealous, we believe in our forces, in the power of our people. Our mass media sources haven't noticed the wave of protest that aroused from Baku to Washington, when we published the statement of the leadership of "Synopsys inc" about the investments of the company in "Synopsys-Armenia" in 2005 and on its development programs for the coming four years. What does it testify to? Perhaps, it says that, due to their position, the ideologists of the information war inspire the young Azeries with groundless optimism, and due to their own views. The desparate attempt to deprive the private American corporation of its profit, appealing to the political views of the Azeries, testifies to the fact that in Baku, contrary to the official statements, they aren't very confident about their military superiority.

Frequently, when they speak of the priority national interests, in certain circles it is accepted as an attempt to avert sharp corners in the home politics.

In general, we try not to overemphasize the crashing critics of the authorities. It doesn't mean that we do not criticize the authorities. It means that we try to built our critics in a way that would help settle certain issues, we don't need to criticize for the sake of mere populism. In order to contribute to settlement and not to make a harm, one should be competent and should have a professional intuition. I'll bring an example. In 2005 Armenia expected to get a credit from the Japanese Government for development of hydro energetic system. But, because of long lasting bureaucratic delays, they failed to manage the work required for receiving the credit. Our editor published an article entitled "Japanese Time Trouble." But, it's worth mentioning, that Aleksander Avanesov didn't write dossiers on the officials and make any universal conclusion. He just slightly hinted at their sluggishness, their impotence. The problem was soon settled. Thus, if you want to stir up a Caucasian, you should hint at his impotence. If we put it more seriously, I believe that one can get the desired result from an Armenian, you should call him incapable of working. Resounding accusations often yield the contrary effect, if they are groundless enough.

What are the dynamics of consumer's demand for the production of ArmInfo?

At present, we don't have such a high international demand that we used to have in the years of the Karabakh war. But we still cooperate with the largest international agencies and with the international databases. The number of the agreements we made allows me to state we have used the maximum from the informational field. Though, you know, 15 years is no round anniversary.

The diplomatic missions turn to you for informational support. How do you manage to cooperate both with the upholders of democratization and with those who believe that diplomacy is a delicate matter?

We have no special secret. We have been constantly refusing to specialize in political PR. Certain people even attempted to dictate their ideology to us, their logic of international relations, but we always refused to cooperate under such terms.

Which are the main stages of the agency's development?

In the beginning, our agency specialized on highlighting Nagorno Karabakh conflict, then we began highlighting home politics. But already in 1994, when the Armenian economy was fully crashed, we had serious plans for the economic line. My experience of work at the Stock Exchange helped me issue the first business-bulletin in Armenia, in 1994. We managed to establish reliable relations with the banks and the international financial organizations. Today, we feel the pulse of the banking market, we are quite active in the insurance market and analyze the developments in the stock market. Currently, we are issuing such a product as the ratings. We have been issuing the ranking of the banks due to their specific indicators for already 10 years. For already 4 years, we are making the ranking of the insurance companies. We managed to organize the work of an exclusive agency that covers all sides of the Armenian reality. We regularly write political and economic analytical articles. Thus, we settle two issues at one and the same time. Our employees should constantly exercise his brains. The matter is that preparation of short information makes work mechanically. While the analysis helps go into details of the theme that is being highlighted.