Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 30
Trend:
The policy of circles, which spent hundreds of millions, wishing to put the Azerbaijani media under their influence, has collapsed, Azerbaijani President’s Assistant for Public and Political Affairs Ali Hasanov said.
He made the remarks addressing the ceremony of presenting keys of new apartments to journalists in Baku on Jan. 30.
"It is very regrettable that some people, make a mistake by stating that Azerbaijan's policy in the media sphere has failed. Is providing state care to journalists, who familiarize citizens of the country with events taking place in domestic and foreign policy of the state, help in dealing with their material and spiritual problems that much of an erroneous phenomenon that it is regarded as the collapse of the information policy of the state?," Hasanov asked.
The presidential aide emphasized that it is the policy of those who, have been spending their taxpayers’ money under the guise of grants for years, tried to put other countries’ media under their influence in order to use them against their own state, statehood and national interests, has collapsed.
“Valuable” representatives of those “grant media”, gathering in separate centers of Europe, want to hold the “Non TAP” action, in other words, an action against the strategic interests of Azerbaijan, said Hasanov.
“This is the journalism that those who want to conduct an external grant policy, are trying to form. If the use of independent media outlets of a country against its state – by putting them under influence – is an indicator of development, then the Azerbaijani state does not need such development,” added the top official.
Hasanov stated that the Azerbaijani media was created on a solid foundation.
“Let those, who say that the media policy has failed and independent media has been destroyed in Azerbaijan, answer if there is any state structure in Azerbaijan that has some sort of influence on the media today?” he said.
Azerbaijan, perhaps, is the first and only state in the region, which, having abolished the Ministry of Press and Information, transferred its responsibility, obligations, norms of creativity of journalists to the public structure created by them – the Press Council, which is the body of media self-regulation, noted the presidential aide.
“Today, the Azerbaijani state helps journalists. The state builds and provides journalists with apartments that they can buy,” added Hasanov.
