One of the main tasks for Azerbaijani media, perhaps the first, is circulation of our Karabakh realities and address of them to readers, listeners and spectator’s auditorium. How our media does handle this important mission? It is impossible to answer to this question in this brief article.

 

In this article some information that could be necessary have been sorted to answer this question…

 

In 2016, monitoring of written materialspublished on internet resources on Karabakh topic was held within the project of “Stimulation of Karabakh topic on internet media resources” by the “Technical and Legal Support to Independent Journalists” Public Union with the help of the Council on  State Support to NGOs under auspices of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

 

The Public Union produced 33268 materials during 3 months in 4 independent media organs, whose visitor number were quite high and demonstrated sensitivity towards the topic.

 

It turned out that 4 sites produced 1202 materials on Karabakh topic. It contains 3,6% of all materials produced by the site.

 

Let me note that these indicators were the results of the monitoring held after several months passed from April fights in 2016.

 

The same organization also with the support of the Council on State Support has realized the project “Support to the systematicaldissemination of realities of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno Karabakh conflict on the internet media resources” in 2018.

 

41830 materials were analyzed during the 4-month monitoring period. It was made clear that 1489 materials were about Nagorno Karabakh conflict. Therefore, 2016. 3 months. 33268 materials. And 1202 materials about Karabakh.

 

2018. 4 months. 41830 materials. 1489 materials about Karabakh.

Only these numbers put forward importance of stimulation of the process.

 

Of course, a lot of tasks have been done in this area.

 

It is impossible not to mention journalists’ competitions held by the Fund of State Support for Development of Mass Mediaunder the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

 

I want to talk about one of the journalist competitions held by the Association for Civil Society Development in Azerbaijan.

 

Starting from 2013 the Association starteda large-scale “Voice of Sarsang” project. The project was about making information publicabout the threat created by Sarsang reservoir under the occupation of Armenia for some frontier regions of our country.

 

There were remarkable achievements in this field.

 

PACE adopted a resolution number 2085 (2016) on “Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water”during the January session of 2016.

 

In the same year, “Establish Justice and Prevent Great Catastrophe” petition was addressed to the U.S. President Administration on the “We are Nation” platform of the White House with the signature of Elkhan Suleymanov, president of the ACSDA. As a result of the large-scale campaign carried by the ACSDA, 331914 signatures were collected.

 

Journalist competition that I am going to speak about was also about this petition project.

 

The competition held in nominations of “Articles and interviewspublished on newspapers, journals and websites,” and “Broadcasts, stories or reportages on television and radio” were presented articles, interviews, stories and reportages published, demonstrated or sounded between April 6 – May 31, 2016.

 

Leyla Maharramova was awarded first place for her article “What does promise the petition addressed to the White house” published on Azadindorm.az website, Elshad Mammadli won the 2nd place for his article series on “Yeni Musavat” newspaper, and  respectively Asif Narimanli for “Achieved aims of the Karabakh Petition – Analysis” on Vətəninfo.az and Rasmiyya Rzali-Garayeva for the article “The War starts at the point where political activities are hopeless” were awarded  third places.

 

Alasgar Valiyev took the first place for his story broadcasted on “Həftənin yekunu”transmission on ITV. Ulviyya Zulfugar was awarded 2nd place for her stories broadcasted on “ATV xəbər”and  “Həftə sonu”. The 3rd place was shared by Gunel Safarli from Lider TV and Leyla Abbasova from Region TV.

 

Besidesthem,  Ali Zulfugaroghly ( “Baymedia” Information Agency), Fuad Huseynzade (“Palitra” newspaper), Batura Nabiyeva (SPACE TV), and Farida Ashralova (CBC) were presented a special diploma for their participation in the competition for media people about “Establish Justice and Prevent Great Catastrophe” petition project.

 

APA was awarded with a special certificate for its invaluable assistance in dissemination of activities of the ACSDA.

 

I remember a sentence from the article of Leyla Maharramova, the winner of the competition: “A successful end comes only when the Good prevails over the Evil”.

 

It is actually true. Only, the Good should work more to gain victory over the Evil, additionally by combining efforts…

 

 

I want to finalize these notes with an extract from the speech of Mr. Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan at the opening ceremony of the new building of the Press Council: “In general, I can say with pleasure that there is an unambiguous position of Azerbaijani media in the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno Karabakh conflict. It is so important. It is a national issue, a nationwide issue. Political interests should be abandoned on this issue. Absolutely,there should not be any government-opposition relations. No one should not make any speculations related to this issue. This is our nationwide, main issue and problem. All Azerbaijani people can solve this problem through unification. That is why we should work more actively on this issueboth within the boundaries of the county and especially in your relations with international media representatives. We should convince ourselves; we already know what happened. We should keep this topic on the agenda. I have expressed my opinions about it at the meeting with the Azerbaijani community of the Nagorno Karabakh that we would never keep calm. We should keep carrying attack policy against Armenia through all ways and formsuntil the restoration of the sovereignty of Azerbaijan. That’s why only this topic should always be highlighted within the country. With regards to the foreign media, we have to deliver our position more comprehensively and cleverly. Especially, if we take into consideration that the truth stands on our side, such as facts, materials, Khojali genocide, occupation of Azerbaijani lands, ethnic cleansing against Azerbaijanis… Procreator of this policy are military criminals. A day will come and they will stand before the international court for these crimes…”

 

Fuad Babayev,

Director of 1905.az portal, PhD in Political Sciences, honored journalist