Journalists must not incite hatred when covering events around Karabakh

Some journalists work unprofessionally in covering the situation in the Karabakh conflict zone, the writer and historian Alexander Goryanin said at a press conference held in Moscow titled ‘Fragile truce in the Karabakh conflict zone: how to keep the peace?'

"The journalists who cover the events do not like to read what they do not like, do not know how to read a map. Their illiterate statements make people think that journalists are one of the instruments for the maintenance of the conflict. The Karabakh conflict began with a war of historians. Do you remember the book of Zori Balayan, ‘Hearth’? It was imbued with hatred for Azerbaijanis. It was published in 1984, when it seemed that nothing could pass the censor. Silva Kaputikian and others were adding fuel to the fire. It is not journalists who start wars. But they do everything so war can be started, and then it is difficult to extinguish it, because they incite hatred in ordinary, simple people who believe a respected person, who are turning to them from the screen,’’ Goryanin said.

In connection with the latest events around Karabakh there have been several talk shows on Russian television. "Everyone was shouting excitedly that this is Turkey's fault, Turkey is muddying the waters. There is no evidence of this, it is just a hypothesis. It reminds me of the end of the 1980s, when it started. Journalists cannot be retrained. Still, I think we need to refer to them sometimes with a call to be a little more careful in their assessments and not to incite hatred," the historian said.