The political forces running for the Yerevan City Council in the May 31 elections are mainly dissatisfied with the quality and way of coverage of their campaigns in print media. While they consider that television stations are mostly neutral in their reports involving candidates and their campaigns, they see a division in print and online media into two parts – pro-governing and pro-opposition that are openly engaged in smear campaigns against the opposite camp.

Seven TV companies were monitored to see how balanced they are in their coverage of the election campaign. Among them one is public (Armenian Public Television H1) and six are private (H2, ALM, ArmNews, Yerkir Media, Kentron and Shant).

Representatives of journalistic and public organizations were again angered by the violent attack on a famous journalist and presenter Nver Mnatsakanyan, who anchors a popular prime-time talk show on Shant TV. The attack is believed to be linked to his professional activity, as Mnatsakanyan does not pursue any other.

On May 6, at around midnight, after another series of the “Herankar” (“Perspective”) program on Shant TV ended, Mnatsakanyan was attacked and beaten by two unknown people on his way home in front of entrance # 1 of 20/3 building on Margaryan Street in Yerevan.

The time for agricultural work on soil for the spring sowing campaign is up in the Ararat valley and is running out for the country’s mountainous areas. But many potato-growing collective farms have not managed to finish the sowing of early-ripening potatoes on time because of financial difficulties.

Specialists (in the sphere of agriculture) believe that it means in the near future the amount of potatoes will not be enough, and the prices will be rather high.

A brutal attack on a journalist only days before the World Press Freedom Day marked on May 3 raised more questions over how safe the profession of journalism is in Armenia.

Police launched a criminal investigation following an attack on Argishti Kiviryan, a coordinator of the ARMENIA Today news agency, who was severely beaten on his way home from work in the small hours of April 30.