Caucasus: Feb/Mar '10

An IWPR seminar on new media has brought together young people from Armenia and Azerbaijan, serving the twin aims of uniting people from different cultures who rarely meet and explaining important new online tools to them.

Enmity between the two countries means developments in one do not get properly reported in the other, even though they are neighbours and the seminar hoped to help correct this.

Some 20 participants – 10 from each country – took part in the February sessions in Tbilisi, Georgia, under IWPR’s “Neighbours” programme, which is unique in the Caucasus region. The programme groups young journalists from Armenia and Azerbaijan into a training programme and produces a joint Armenian–Azerbaijani supplement.

The topic of the latest supplement – ethnic and religious minorities of Armenia and Azerbaijan – gave the authors the opportunity to get acquainted with new, interesting and little-reported problems and way of life.

"When IWPR invited me to act as a trainer at a meeting of Armenian and Azerbaijani journalists in Tbilisi, I jumped at the chance, not least because recent reports indicate that the media in both countries still fail to objectively and accurately report on the other,” trainer Onnik Krikorian said.

“This often reinforces and sometimes even creates negative stereotypes which do little to contribute to an understanding of the conflict between the two countries or help contribute to conflict transformation and resolution.”

An announcement inviting participation in the seminar was made via IWPR Armenia branch subscribers and the organisation’s Facebook page. The announcement aroused great interest among young journalists and IWPR received more than 30 applications.

In Azerbaijan, a special training workshop was held to select participants for the Tbilisi seminar.

Applicants had to already be writing a blog and the selection was made according to the quality of these blogs, which were required to reflect the important political and social issues concerning young people. Applicants needed a good command of Russian and English, basic skills in working with photo and video cameras; and the ability and willingness to work with an international team.

Sabina Abubekirova, who took part, said, “To my mind, civic journalism has become more popular in recent years and has a great impact on society, so I think that this training course will be very useful and important for me.”

The course in Tbilisi included practical exercises and concentrated mainly on using Twitter and Facebook as means of social networking. A session provided an overview of the growing importance of new/social media for national and international media organisations, especially at a time of financial stringency and the growth of citizens’ or alternative media and the potential role of new/social media in the South Caucasus.

“With the media the world over adopting new online tools such as blogs, Twitter and Facebook for a variety of purposes such as identifying and covering breaking news as well as distributing content more widely, such an opportunity is not only important, but it is also timely,” Krikorian said.

Hrayr Manukyan, a training participant, said, “Most important for me personally was the acquaintance with Twitter and skills for posting a variety of material on Facebook and Twitter ... It lets a bigger audience read what I am writing for the newspaper.”

Lilit Nurijanyan, a journalist from Yerevan, said, “I understood how useful Twitter can be for journalism. When we had to write tweets, it was very difficult at first, as I had to pick up the most important part of what I want to convey. Since the training and my introduction to Twitter, I use it every day.”

As a result of this project, IWPR has built a network of young journalists from Armenia and Azerbaijan, who have learned to work, socialise and study alongside each other.

“Indeed, if anything, there is a need for greater cooperation and communication between media professionals in Armenia and Azerbaijan. The ability to introduce journalists to new online tools is obviously vital as traditional links have broken down. And as non-government linked media outlets in the region increasingly find themselves having to go online, it is also crucial that journalists keep up with the latest developments so as to contribute to their work and reach an increasing online audience,” Krikorian said.

More than 20 young journalists from Armenia and Azerbaijan have taken part in the project so far. Six joint seminars have been conducted and around 60 articles written for the supplement, three issues of which have been produced in the Armenian and Azeri languages.

The supplements produced by the trainees have been widely noticed. On the day one was published, Armenia's human rights ombudsman, Armen Harutiunyan, invited IWPR and Neighbours participants who worked on the publication to meet him to express his support in covering issues around minorities in Armenia.

“I salute the publication of the supplement describing the problems of national minorities in Armenia and Azerbaijan. It is critically important to provide balanced reporting on problems of national minorities in a mono-ethnic country like Armenia,” Harutiunyan said.
“It is diversity that creates a more tolerant society, and our country lacks tolerance in all spheres. The human rights office of Armenia is ready to cooperate both with the Institute for War and Peace Reporting and individual journalists involved in the Neighbours project within the framework of seminars, preparation of articles and other activities.”

“I often go to Azerbaijan and have been able to read the Armenian-Azeri supplement regularly,” journalist Zaur Dargali, an ethnic Azeri living in Georgia, said. “The latest issue, the one about ethnic minorities, was particularly interesting to me. I am a representative of an ethnic minority myself, and I’ve found that our problems are similar to those faced by minorities everywhere in the South Caucasus.”