ArmInfo.Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia Shavarsh Kocharyan denies having a so-called "blacklist of unsavory media" in the department he represents, not only using special sanctions in the form of blocking access to information, but also developing some conspiracies from the Foreign Ministry spokesman.
On July 27, after the government session, Shavarsh Kocharyan assured the journalists that there are no issues that would hang in the air and would not be commented on by the Armenian Foreign Ministry. "It's another matter that in many cases, the answers were distorted, as a result of which the practice of writing a response to questions was introduced," he said.
Note that recently a scandal broke out in social networks due to the fact that in a closed Facebook group of press secretaries of Armenian state agencies, the RA MFA Spokesman Tigran Balayan expressed dissatisfaction with the work of the "Graparak" newspaper and one of his correspondents, asking his colleagues how to proceed with A wayward journalist. In response, Artsrun Hovhannisyan, spokesman for the Defense Ministry, advised to include this media, as well as another Zhokhovard newspaper, on the blacklist. And the press secretary of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Nana Gndoyan even suggested the method of "effective intimidation of the media". According to her, in order to stay away from the obsessive journalist for a long time, one should refer to the provision of the law on freedom of information, which grants the relevant department the right to provide information within 30 days. Head of the Public Relations Department of the National Assembly of Armenia Arsen Babayan and Advisor to the Governor of Gegharkunik Zohrab Yeganyan also expressed their complaints about the work of the media and journalists.