Azerbaijan, Baku, July 17 / Trend K. Zarbaliyeva /
Countries must not control or intervene in media activity in democratic societies, adviser on political affairs to the EU representation in Azerbaijan, Andrey Valentinov said.
The country must support the creation of new media in the country by adopting new laws to support them, he said at a conference entitle 'From traditional to online media' today, organised by the British Embassy in Azerbaijan, the OSCE Baku office, CE and EU representative offices in Baku and the Press Council.
The EU representative also urged the authorities not to rush while adopting new laws and regulations, but to take into account the opinion of media.
Head of the OSCE Office in Baku Koray Targay said that at present, the requirements associated with the media have changed. People prefer to receive information from the online media.
"OSCE's Baku office contributes to the development of online media in Azerbaijan," Targay said. "Several projects have been implemented since 2011. The courses were organised for journalists. Freedom of speech and press are the OSCE's basic principles. Earlier, news could be received through radio and television. Today this information is not enough. Today we get full information through online media more rapidly."
There are 40 daily newspapers, 200 online newspapers, nine TV, one satellite TV, 14 regional TV, 20 Internet radio and about 40 news portals in Azerbaijan, Amashov said.
He said that newspapers have won as a result of online media development. Each newspaper has its own web page which is updated every minute, Amashov said.
Currently, 65 per cent of Azerbaijani residents use the Internet, he said. About 35 per cent fall to regular Internet users. Approximately one million people use the site www.facebook.com. The country has about 20 Internet-TV used by 100,000 people preferring to get information from this source. There are about 2000 blogs. They are served by about 30 providers, Amashov said.
