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Monday 11 February 2008

Western media on presidential election campaign in Armenia: Not interested?

In contrast with Georgia, so far western media does not seem to show interest in covering presidential elections in Armenia. Only last night, perhaps for the first time during this pre-election period, BBC News 24 TV channel very briefly within its headlines mentioned as they put it "huge opposition rally in Armenia" (referring to Levon Ter-Petrosyan's rally) showing video footage from Liberty sq in Yerevan.

I assume their interest will grow closer to election date, but still this is very indicative sign of differing attitudes towards 'pro-Western' Georgia and 'pro-Russian' Armenia.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I met the BBC's guy last week when he arrived in Yerevan and he said he really had to push for a story from Armenia because, yes, they weren't so interested. Indeed, he first had to pitch the story as WHY people should be interested in Armenia and the election.

Anyway, I wouldn't expect much coverage internationally although the BBC will come back again just before the vote, I saw Lawrence Sheets from NPR at the Levon rally on Saturday and he's here for the duration, plus New York Times fly in on 13 Feb.

I'm sure there will be more, but I think it's right to assume that Armenia is nowhere as interesting as Georgia for the West for obvious reasons.