Armenia should raise media awareness of population

The Union of Banks of Armenia has awarded the certificate of honor to ARKA News Agency for its active participation in the comprehensive coverage of economic, financial and banking developments in the republic. This fact was even more impressive because the agency celebrated its 17th anniversary this year. Over these years, ARKA, once being a small agency delivering economic news, has grown into a media holding. ARKA founder Konstantin Petrosov spoke about media perspectives and development in the near future. 

Petrosov- 17 years is a serious term not only for media, but also for any other company operating in Armenia. It demonstrates its stability. In fact, we chose a long-term development strategy and we have been always adhering to it. We have been developing different focuses of our business, investing in education, content production, new projects. As the new technologies emerged, we launched new internet products, such as www.armbanks.am financial and banking portal and www.telecom.arka.am telecommunications portal. These portals are now included into our media holding.

 

This year we are going to launch an absolutely new product at the Armenian market – Finstore.am business information e-shop. This is a unique product that contains the database of Armenia’s enterprises. The product makes it easy to analyze the market and asses the investment attraction of Armenian different economic spheres, business environment, to know the clients better and monitor business competitors. 

Petrosov- There is almost no media business in Armenia, and one of the main reasons for that is poor economy. Our main client and consumer is small and medium-size business. But our SME is just so microscopic, and it is scared of everything, even of its own shadow. Medium-size business is almost absent in Armenia, and large business actually doesn’t care. And the second reason is that there is no demand for high-quality press. As a result, high-quality business press is not developing in Armenia, instead, gossip, rumor and yellow press is advancing. 

Petrosov- That’s right, but any former Soviet republic has some high-quality media sources and yellow press. But in our country, the segment of high-quality media is almost invisible. 

Petrosov- There are several ways. First and foremost, if Armenia’s economy, at last, starts working, we will have something to write about, there will be some interest. Let’s suppose, the oil is found in Armenia, or the natural gas. In that case, Armenia can see serious investments, international companies will open their affiliates in our country. Do you see what I mean? The information must be interesting and useful for everyone, including international organizations, companies. They can get interested in the republic when it has an economy, stock market, when they see where they can invest in. On the other hand, we could serve the SME if this sector developed. But when we have neither this nor that, it is really sad. That’s why we ended up with designing Finstore.am. This product doesn’t deliver news, it is rather opens an image of what is going on. People should know about the opportunities in their country. 

As to why we are constantly developing new projects and investing in new ideas, the answer is if we sit at the same spot, without growing, we would have to close up long ago and set up another business.  But we believe in our country, we hope that the situation will change some time later, and high-quality media will be demanded here. And what do we see today? Every day, 10-15 “sitelets” are born in Armenia.  In fact, they are just something like informational garbage which covers the whole media field. Why are they launched? In order to serve somebody’s interests. We have this vogue now, maybe it will mature, maybe not. I forecast this vogue will be replaced when the economic situation drastically changes. 

 

Petrosov-  Look, if there are just three cellular operators in Armenia, it means the market has space for only three companies, otherwise, it will be non-profitable. As to the media market, there are many players there who are not working in a normal economic field, who are not paying the taxes. As a result, we end up in unequal competition conditions. And I haven’t mentioned information theft and copy paste yet. Today, anyone can invest $1,500-2,000, launch a “sitelet” sitting at home, copy paste the articles and reports of agencies, and then invest $500 in buying the bandwidth and become a media tycoon. And now let me ask you : if we have so many “sitelets”, what quality can we speak about? 

Give me an example, when did any of the serious resources quote these “sitelets” or buy their information? The market should grow. For example, we are often told about the necessity to enlarge the banking system, that the banks can’t be competitive with little assets. The same relates to us. How can we compete globally and develop with such number of “sitelets”? The problem is that we have maintained just one propaganda. Armenia has locked in itself and separated itself from the rest of the world. Well, maybe it has made an exception for some adjacent states. We have forgotten about the existence of the global information community. It is time to think over it. I don’t want to pronounce “regulation” word, because somebody may think  we infringe on the freedom of speech. We don’t infringe on anyone or anything, we just want everyone to follow the rules equally in the game. And let the strongest win. 

Petrosov- Look, it costs cheap to enter the market. If the market doesn’t grow, if the elementary ethical norms don’t emerge, which ban information theft, nothing will change. We will go on with working in the boggy and poor market. We won’t even dream about some progress. Let me give you a simple example: Recently, the “Capital” newspaper has closed up in Armenia. This is a very bad impetus for me. It was a good newspaper, but not enough monetized, and as a result, the owner terminated publishing it. It turns out, that we have no demand for business information. 

Petrosov- Yes. Things were just emerging at that time, there was no Internet. We were designing the rules of the game, we had different tasks. It would cost much more to enter the market at that time. Today, anybody from the street can become our competitor. And this is normal from informational market’s angle. Today, we monitor the social networks as well, and if we find something important and interesting what we have missed, we verify it and release our information. This is a general practice.  But a consumer should be able to remove the garbage. In our country people fail to do so, the media awareness of the population, which should form since the childhood, is really low. The family members should teach you the culture of reading newspapers, etc. Lately, I have given a lecture to the students majoring in management. They will be tomorrow’s heads of enterprises. But none of them had any idea about the Armenian media field. Today, they don’t even imagine what big problems they can face in the near future. 

Petrosov- It is not a secret that today our young people almost don’t read printed press. I don’t even want to speak about the level of education. Of course, there are some good and educated young people, but if we look globally, the education sphere is poor here. People don’t want to study, they are not interested in that. They don’t see university as an important tool to obtain their profession. At least, I speak about the journalists. Many students applied to these departments in order to receive diplomas, and it was the choice of either their parents, or it was cheaper or easier to study there. 

  

Petrosov- First of all, it is necessary to raise media awareness. If we roll out chess as mandatory subject at secondary schools, we could also  introduce the subject which would teach pupils to love newspapers. Maybe we should teach Internet journalism. This is something that is being discussed by many experts in the former Soviet republics now, and not only there. And the recent media forum in Astana, where I participated, just proves it. The world hasn’t simply changed, it’s become more vulnerable as the technologies emerged. Just remember what happened when some hackers attacked Twitter account of Associated Press and falsely tweeted about some bombings at the White House. 

Within just several minutes, the Dow Jones index collapsed, and somebody benefited from that a lot. The development of technologies has made the media field very vulnerable. Today, nobody can clearly answer how media will develop in the future. Everyone is now speaking about multimedia as the main trend, but it is important to learn earning there as well, as multimedia requires serious investments, which should later pay off. 

Petrosov- Look, today we see that people haven’t got satisfied with the networks, they want to pour everything into them. Some people create information, the others consume it. And one can find it difficult to breath in this chaos, as one can’t understand who is right, who is not. That’s why the role of media should be maintained. People will still open the brands and read them. A resource can’t be serious if it doesn’t refer to a source ( very common thing for our media field). If all day round an information community is saying one thing, and then refutes it… What is that? A simple example, some sources were reporting that Prince Charles is allegedly coming to Armenia. This rumor was circulating at the market for several days. 

And no one would either confirm or refute it. How is it even possible? It turns out, that anybody can invent any story about any individual, post it in the social networks, and then refute it. And no one carries any responsibility. In order to be in time, compete with new media, the traditional media should develop a new strategy, change their newspapers’ design, release news faster. If they don’t do so, they will just lose their auditorium and close up. But it is not happening in our country, no one closes up. It means, the market is working under non-marketing rules. 

 

Petrosov-  You said the most important word-  the brand. One should orient to a brand, serious news agencies, of which there are so few in our country. We should teach people to differentiate “sitelets” from sites, we should develop their taste, raise their media awareness so as they could make sense in the media field. 

  

Petrosov- It is about reforms. We believe there will be reforms, the economy will work, the market will be demonopolized, international companies will arrive here which will not export the “brains” but will focus on real business. You know Europe helped Poland a lot. Many European organizations opened there which helped the Polish to conduct research by leading smart people into competition. But it is necessary to create appropriate conditions in the country. 

 

Petrosov- I can’t speak on behalf of Armenia. I speak on behalf of the market where I work. High-quality business media indicate the economy. If our business grows, we implement projects, we have advertisement, if we have business it means economy is okay.  Don’t forget that news agencies, in contrast to the other media sources, sell information, they have products. Development of Internet has seriously pressured them.

There are even speculations that we are not needed anymore, as anything can be found in the Internet now. It is the biggest delusion! Can you imagine the situation when the structures that make decisions refuse from subscribing to the products produced by the agencies and monitor the Internet only? 

And what if the news appears late at night, when the working hours of an employee, who has been monitoring all day, is over? Does it mean the news will be inappropriate? That’s why we think the matter is not only money but also the impetus. The readers should be told where to orient, what media are serious, which even serve the interests of the government. 

People should understand that information is first of all produced by high-quality media.The “sitelet” which is never quoted and has just 1.5 workers, just can’t be in a pool of serious structures or organizations. We have contributed a lot, made a lot of efforts, and we have been working on the market for 17 years and hopefully will go on. We can’t afford releasing non-verified information, because we sell it and we are responsible for our products. Maybe, we should also struggle against these “sitelets” which grow as mushrooms after the rain. Maybe we should unite in associations of news agencies, create rules, prevent damping. 

Petrosov- It is hard to unite in Armenia. And there are no guarantee that everyone would adhere to the same rules and wouldn’t break them. We just need to realize we are not the competitors for each other. We should make the members of media agencies realize that there is a pool of serious media, and there are also sites, and these are two different structures. Today, our country has no problem in the freedom of speech. We have a lot of press clubs, all of them are freely functioning, using the limitless opportunities of Internet. Armenia is the most free country in this aspect. Even some large countries can’t say the same. That’s why, Armenia doesn’t have a problem with the freedom of speech, it has a business problem. There is no freedom of speech which is not strengthen by basis: it automatically becomes non-free. The moment somebody pays for media, the freedom of speech dies. And if there is an economic basis, one chooses whether to release the news or not. You understand that there is no absolute freedom of speech, don’t you? Do you think America or Europe have it? It is all conditional. There are levels in all freedoms. That’s why, it is important to grow, create media holdings to be financially sustainable. 

Petrosov-  Of course, to publish  a newspaper is very hard, but if include it into a holding, then, why not, it should be calculated. And here we face a problem of media management. There is no notion of media management in Armenia. Any person from the street can become a media manager in our country. Can you say what these specialists focus on? The field is so poor that we have to hire not the best candidates, but even they, working for some time, become managers in some other places, because there is a lack for specialists. That’s why, creating a new product, Finstore, we withdrew from giving the content within a short period of time, we have some long-term perspectives. Finstore is a step to open information, and impetus that Armenia is becoming transparent. It is good for forming a favorable business environment in the country ,and it can positively impact the position of our country in Doing Business report. 

Petrosov- We will be certainly pursuing  and analyzing  how our market is developing, and solving the problems as they emerge. Facebook-mania will  pass away, and people will return to high-quality media. An individual who respects himself/herself will never go out in torn shoes or clothes. To consume low-quality information is the same as to go out in a messy dressing. When one realizes it, one will stop consuming low-quality information. On the other hand, why should journalists write poor articles, who gave them the right to misinform people? People should vote using their brains, because if they are cajoled, then they deserve this market. And tomorrow, we will have a media field full of rumors, gossips, etc. We won’t appear on the global market because won’t be able to answer: what the main information agenda of Armenia is, it can’t be revealed from the Internet. And if we want to be at least a regional player, we need high-quality media, skilled journalists who can write articles in not only Armenian, but also other languages. This is a prestige of the country, and we should fight for it. -0-