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Tahir Mammadov: â€œWe consider the OSCEâ€™s evaluation of the Public Televisionâ€™s activity in the presidential elections as an objectiveâ€

17 December 2008 16:40 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Elbrus Seyfullayevâ€“APA. Public Relations Department Chief of the Public Television and Radio Broadcasting Company Tahir Mammadov interviewed with APA.

-Yesterday OSCE/ODIHR issued a final report on 15 October 2008 presidential elections in Azerbaijan. Do you satisfy with the evaluation of the Public Televisionâ€™s activity?

-We consider the evaluation of Public Televisionâ€™s activity as an objective at all. You know that the Public Television and Radio carried out its duties in the presidential elections in a necessary level. It is seen in the report that our report was not out of attention of the monitoring group.

-Are there thoughts in the report you arenâ€™t satisfied with?

- Yes, there are. There were thoughts about the media prefer to cover Ilham Aliyevâ€™s campaign than other candidates, which objective causes we made clear at the meetings with the OSCE officials. The efforts of the Public Television toward this were noted in the report as well. For example they noted that the Public Television reduced coverage of the incumbent presidentâ€™s activity since the official start of election campaign and the Public Television gave 16 percent of its airtime in the news programs to coverage of the presidentâ€™s activity. Naturally we perfectly know that the president was more active than other candidates during the election campaign and before and this figure indicates that we presented maximum short materials. Director General of the Public Television Ismayil Omarov asked Mr. Herkel at the meeting with him that â€œif we didnâ€™t cover your meeting with the President, would it be contrary to the principle of public broadcasting?â€ It means that the Public Television covered not the Presidentâ€™s elections campaign, but his activity as a head of state.

-Local mass media differently highlighted the report. Sometimes your activity is identified with the activity of State Television. What is your opinion about that?

-The Public Television and Radio is an only public broadcaster in the country and such comparison is wrong. I think the news related to such serious document should be correct.