Vote for Oneworld Multimedia
Just a reminder that you can vote for this blog (One World) under the CIS category of the Third Annual Satin Pajama Awards here. Thanks in advance to anyone who feels like doing so.
May 25, 2007
12 Comments »
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I just cast my vote for your blog. But given that you are in second place (as of Friday night) behind the “New Eurasia” blog, I urge other readers to weigh in and cast a ballot.
keep up the good work…..
-Richard Giragosian
Comment by Richard Giragosian — May 26, 2007 @ 12:27 am
Well, only if they want to. Otherwise, aside from that, thanks for the comment.
Comment by Onnik — May 26, 2007 @ 12:45 am
Done.
Comment by nazarian — May 26, 2007 @ 9:23 pm
done
Comment by Kornelij — May 26, 2007 @ 11:38 pm
Onnik,
Your coverage of elections did not live up to my expectations. You mainly covered the public events (like gatherings of different parties), which could have been done by journalism students as well.
You did not go for the ESSENCE of “electoral” process. You did not even follow on those public reports (RFE/RL, and I even prompted you) that suggested systemic internalized fear and intimidation in the countryside and the real nature of RPA “campaigning”, let alone do any independent investigation. You acted mainly as a superficial observer.
Moreover, for whatever reasons, towards the end of the campaign you lost even that type of observer’s impartiality and started hitting opposition much more heavily than the authorities. From reading your last entries, one can come to the conclusion that the biggest problem in Armenia is the opposition, whereas every inquisitive schoolchild knows that in authoritarian regimes, by their very definition, there could not be an effective opposition. Hence, your unusually, for a neutral observer (now that we established that you were no investigative journalist), emotional adjectives describing opposition, “Following on from Saturday’s crushing defeat in the parliamentary election and the rather pitiful protest by the radical opposition the next day…”, cannot be taken seriously.
As an analogy, no observer can be taken seriously while discussing elections in Belarus and not getting to the essence of the system of internalized fear established there, reporting more or less technically clean elections (and the latest elections indeed were more or less clean although the Western media pictured it otherwise, capitalizing on some UNNECESSARY OVERT repressions - as unnecessary as there were in Armenia’s case whose authorities smartly avoided them), seeing how the authorities got the majority of the votes and … squarely blaming the opposition for it! And calling it disdainful names. And not seeing (or not wanting to see) MUCH bigger fault of the regime itself.
For the reasons above, sorry but I cannot vote for your blog.
Comment by Artashes — May 27, 2007 @ 7:36 am
Incidentally:
No, I acted like a photographer who was working on strict deadlines for EurasiaNet’s special election coverage site and who happened to run a blog. Moreover, I quoted EurasiaNet and RFE/RL constantly, putting all sides of the argument wherever possible. However, time was limited and I did as much as I could.
This was especially hard because most of the players in this election were secretive and not helful at all. The Central Election Commission, Public TV, IFES, Heritage and Orinats Yerkir stand out as exceptions here. The Republican Party, People’s Party and Dashink were the worse and not helpful at all. In fact, they wasted my time… constantly.
Anyway, given that I was working for EurasiaNet, all the reporting you say you wanted should have been on their site in terms of properly researched and written articles from the likes of RFE/RL’s Emil Danielyan and Armenia Now’s Marianna Grigorian. It pretty much covered everything and I linked to and quoted from almost every article.
Now, apologies for putting my work above your own personal needs, but this blog is a voluntary endeavor in my own spare time and I was hardly sleeping at all during the election period. Given that almost no other blogger did anything other than attend Aylentrank rallies or Sksela events, I think I did pretty well.
Always room for improvement, of course, and you’re free to underwrite me for the next election if you really want me to have the ability to do things without having to worry about prior work commitments and deadlines.
Amazing. Really amazing. It’s a blog, I work, and yest I still did as much as I could despite everything, and all you can do is complain. Like I said, if this is typical of a radical opposition supporter albeit one based outside the country then you’ve proven my point. Still, like I said, you’re free to read whatever you want, vote for whoever you like, and make as many comments as you want.
However, I’d really suggest you set up your own blog and let’s see just how much you can do with that, ok? Instead of complaining, put all that negative energy to good use by setting up your own . Then we can all link to each others posts, agree, disagree and so on. That too is what is needed.
Comment by Onnik — May 27, 2007 @ 9:59 am
Onnik - it doens’t let me vote… I mean - I open the page, and it says that i have already voted, but I haven’t… do you know what’s the problem?
Comment by Observer — May 27, 2007 @ 3:58 pm
Is the computer accessed by more than one person? If it is maybe someone else voted from the same computer, connection and browser or something. If not, then maybe it’s got something to do with how IP addresses are assigned in Armenia. If that’s the case it’s quite a problem. I remember, for example, that someone once tried to prevent one person from commenting on a site and blocked what he thought was a unique IP address. As it was, it turned out to affect other subscribers to the same ISP or something. The joys of the Internet in Armenia.
Comment by Onnik — May 27, 2007 @ 11:04 pm
Onnik, it’s sad that you cannot take fair critique; it’s sad that you cannot distinguish between “attack” and “criticism”; and it’s sad that you are trying to discredit a person who is criticizing you, instead of looking at the essence of his remarks.
I can write a lengthy post and clearly show that your proposition that I “wanted total anti-government pro-opposition coverage” is completely unsustainable, but I will limit myself to stating that the only thing I wanted is honest and objective coverage and analysis. And since in regimes like the Armenian one the authorities have practically ALL the leverage and opposition has close to none (beginning with an access to air time and ending with administrative and financial pressure factors), the honest and objective coverage will have to concentrate much more on the authorities than on the opposition!! As I said earlier, even a smart schoolchild knows it to be true in authoritarian regimes like the Armenian one (and I brought an analogy with the Belorussian regime). As for the opposition, I myself characterized it as “they do deserve all the scorn” and “the pathetic opposition”. End of the story. That’s the brief version on incorrectness of your allegations.
Now on the substance. Once again, as weak and fragmented the opposition may be (and it is!), that in ABSOLUTELY NO way reduces a iota of responsibility from the government’s task to simply uphold the law in the process of campaigning and elections!! What is there even to discuss? If agreed on that, then the major role of independent media would be to make sure the laws are upheld by all players, and report the violations, if any. That’s the most important watchdog role of media. The reportage of public mass actions is all right but has nothing to do with that very important role.
Now, I saw the hints of SYSTEMATIC violations of election laws by the authorities throughout the campaign period, as reported by RFE/RL, among others. This is what I wrote to you in this blog on April 27: “Read the press review on RFE/RL for last couple of days: I did not realize HOW MUCH people are intimidated in provinces by the Republican Party!!! It’s outrageous! I would really advise you to follow on it and make a big report yourself! This is a BIG thing, as far as democraticness of elections is concerned! Much much bigger than the campaign meetings and pop concerts…”
http://oneworld.blogsome.com/2007/04/23/bhk-arabkir-rally/#comment-3734
That reaction was based on this report from RFE/RL (among many others):
“Armenian newspaper reports have said that local government officials across the country are forcing public sector employees to join and vote for the HHK or risk losing their jobs and warning people not to support the opposition. …
Many in the small crowd that gathered there [in Martuni] claimed that they were warned not to attend the meeting [with Demirchian]. “All teachers, doctors and other budget-funded employees here are Republicans,” said one man. “They are too scared to come here.”
“You won’t find a single public sector employee here because they are not allow to go to opposition meetings,” said a resident of the nearby village of Vartenik. “Even pensioners and recipients of poverty benefits were warned not to show up.””
http://www.armenialiberty.org/armeniareport/report/en/2007/04/0F977BC4-3E04-4EDF-AD6D-6933309BE9BD.asp
You replied: “The Republican party issue is of course one of concern to me and I’ve publicly stated on this blog that I have yet to turn my attention towards that party which I will do when I get round to it.”
I waited and waited for any kind of follow-up, any kind of in-depth analysis, any kind of investigative journalism, any kind of confirmation or refuting of those truly outrageous and criminal acts of intimidation (“forcing public sector employees to join and vote for the HHK or risk losing their jobs”). I never got anything of the kind. Instead, you visibly increased your level of criticism of much softer target – the pathetic opposition… That’s the reason I got disappointed in your professionalism and that’s the reason I will not vote for your blog.
Maybe, I was expecting too much from you? Maybe. Can it get personally dangerous if you do in-depth coverage and not just the superficial one? It can. Would I blame you or anybody else for not doing it? Never. But please be honest, that’s all…
Artashes
P.S. You say: “There is a comments section and the whole point is that readers can respond and make their case if it is related to the post. Like much of the opposition in the election, however, you chose not to and scream foul after the election was over. Typical.”
As is obvious from my comment quoted above (and many others all over the blogosphere: I am very open and consistent in my remarks) I did make my case very clearly and on time. I hope you simply missed it and not lying in my face now. I leave it to you to apologize for it.
P.P.S. You say: “If you’re the same Artashes who recently had his comments censored on another blog…”
(Well, the moderator himself was one of the “Impeachment” activists.) Other than that I do not recall being “censored”, whatever that means. Please provide the direct link.
I haven’t seen another Artashes here, so it must be me. Could you give me the link to that blog? The only thing I recall was on OpenArmenia.com, where the moderator deleted my words “political prostitutes” with regard to – surprise, surprise! – radical “Impeachment” bloc.
P.P.P.S. As for “attacking” Zarchka on either count, anybody who followed the links you provided should be able to see that it was criticism in the first instance (not even very harsh in that), and quite an innocent fun in the second one (it’s not my fault that she has “humoratrophia lateralis”!
).
Comment by Artashes — May 28, 2007 @ 9:50 am
As for Demirchian, btw, I attended his rally in Shengavit along with two reporters from RFE/RL and a photographer from EurasiaNet. When I arrived 15 minutes before the 4pm meeting should have started there were about 50 people there. This grew into a few hundred but then reduced.
This was NOT because of intimidation from police or employers. It was becaue Demirchian decided to do something else and leave his supporters waiting for over 2 hours. Even RFE/RL were complaining about advertising a rally for 4pm and starting it at past 6pm.
And he wonders why people don’t attend his rallies or slaughter lambs and sheep at his feet anymore?
Others criticize him for being one of the reasons why the opposition failed to unite. He thought he would be met by such scenes wherever he went — just like he was in the 2003 presidential election. However, people had long forgotten about him.
Basically, he has still yet to realize this fact.
Comment by Onnik — May 28, 2007 @ 11:16 am
Interesting. He sent me the email complaining about another blog in February when I suggested he set up a blog. He didn’t respond by saying he had one already although now I look at his Live Journal site I’m glad to see he’s become more active since my email.
Actually, he didn’t even start getting more active until April. In 2006 it looks like he made 4 posts. Since February 2007 he’s made more than 30. However, I don’t have time to go through what little is there. Just tell me one thing, Observer.
What’s his election coverage like?
;-)
After his criticism so far I’m expecting flawless and extensive coverage with deep and meaningful insight and analysis that is politically balanced, neutral and backed up by facts.
Still, as his comments aren’t, I won’t be too surprised if that doesn’t appear to be the case with his blog either. Hopefully, if he does cover problems associated with the Republican party et al, he’d also have dealt with problems associated with the opposition and civil society.
Interestingly, however, from 10-15 May — the main dates before, during and after the election — there are no posts whatsoever. Not one. Go figure.
Comment by Onnik — May 28, 2007 @ 3:07 pm
Incidentally, on the subject of administrative and financial resources and levers controlled by the government, I wonder how we can view millions of dollars spent on civil society activity to effectively expose governmental irregularities, violations and falsifications for the election?
Probably, it can be also viewed as part of the election campaign — or at least some of what I saw turned out to be used for anti-government purposes. Yet, even so, what concrete benefits did it bring to the election? I think this is worth an investigation on its own so any mistakes that were made are not repeated next year for the presidential election.
For sure, while the election was better than before, I view this as being more down to pressure from the West rather than the concrete activities of NGOs here. Still, many NGOs made a killing and can continue in their operations even if their activities — especially in the area of educating voters against bribes — seems to have been fruitless.
Or maybe even this is an improvement. The money might not have yielded concrete results on election day, but at least the election was the most transparent yet. However, as I’ve said before, there’s been very little presented as evidence despite the huge amount of money that was spent. The latest OSCE report also suggests that this was the case for a third of all TECs as well.
Still, we have something to build upon now, and I don’t think we had that in 2003, for sure. Now all that remains to bee seen is if many of the flaws in this election can be addressed and rectified in time for the next one.
Comment by Onnik — May 28, 2007 @ 4:10 pm