Top official: Not all problems of Azerbaijani media solved

Azerbaijan, Baku, May 2 / Trend M. Aliyev /

Not all problems that Azerbaijani media is facing, have been solved, Head of the Azerbaijani Presidential Administration's Social and Political Department, Ali Hasanov said today at the conference on "Azerbaijani media: current situation and future challenges".

Hasanov said that the future tasks can be grouped in four directions, and the first one is saving media from a trend of politicization.

"Today, the media has been grouped in Azerbaijan in accordance with political camps, that is, there are pro-government, opposition, independent media and racket media," Hasanov said.

"Racket media has turned into one of the major problems, as of late," Hasanov said. "The main purpose of journalists working there is to achieve certain goals by threatening people."

Hasanov noted that if Azerbaijani journalist doesn't accept the norms of behavior and journalistic ethics, adopted by the Press Council, he cannot be called a journalist in the first place.

He said that such individuals must not be regarded as journalists. Hereby, these people will be deprived of the journalists' existing protection system.

"Either these journalists must obey the accepted norms of behavior or we will fail to create a sphere for defamation," he said. "The professionalism is also required. Every journalist must know how to collect the information, spread it and present positions of different sides. It is necessary to use the experience of journalists who have long worked in this sphere."

Hasanov said that the courses on improving journalists' professionalism can be opened at the Press Council and editorial offices, and the government is ready to allocate funds for this work.

"The racket journalism is one of the main problems depreciating journalism itself," Hasanov said. "The main task is to get rid of such kind of journalism."

Hasanov noted that the number of people involved in these processes equals the number of professional journalists in Azerbaijan.

"It is necessary to completely get rid of these people," he added. "The whole world is moving towards the media development and strengthening its logistics base."

Hasanov also said that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev made a revolutionary breakthrough in boosting transparency of the support rendered to media in the country.

"The Azerbaijani Fund for State Support to Media, established upon the Azerbaijani state support to media concept approved by the Azerbaijani President, provides the media with one-time assistance and delivers grants annually in a transparent manner, conducts contests for journalists, rewards and builds houses for them," he said.

"No one will get an apartment in a building built for journalists based on some subjective reasons. Can anyone tell a government and a country, President of which takes such care of journalists, that the "freedom of the media is violated", that "the rights of journalists are violated", that "journalists are arrested"? Of course not," Hasanov noted.

He said no head of state would want the journalists in his country to be persecuted, sued and have problems with them.

"No president wants that. Azerbaijani President is far from all this. Thus, the essence of today's policy is to create all conditions for Azerbaijani journalism in material, social and creative spheres," Hasanov underscored.