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The monitoring of Armenian print media coverage of the electoral period indicated that Armenian print media showed much interest in the electoral process. In some cases, there was unbalanced, subjective and selective media coverage of events, Executive Director of Armenian Public Relations Association (APRA) Tatevik Pirumyan told a news conference in Yerevan.

APRA conducted monitoring of Armenian print media coverage of the electoral period within the framework of an EU-funded project on supporting democratic elections in Armenia implemented by OSCE Office in Yerevan. The monitoring kicked off on March 12. 16 local newspapers with a circulation of 3000 and above were monitored for 2.5 months (Irates de Facto, Azg, Iravunk, Hayots Ashkhar, Haykakan Zhamanak, Yerkir, Zhamanak, Zhoghovurd, Chorrord Inknishkhanutyun, Hraparak, 168 Zham, Aravot, Hayatsk, Orakarg, Golos Armeniii, Novoye Vremya).

According to APRA expert Armen Minasyan, the share of media coverage of the electoral process was 38.3 percent. At the same time, the expert noted that media had campaigning rather than informative function in electoral period.

The monitoring revealed that negative titles prevailed in the monitored print media, with too many comments by authors, according to Minasyan. Besides, there were too many negative mentions: pro-government papers negatively referred to opposition parties and vice versa. As for Heritage, both pro-government and pro-opposition papers had mostly negative mentions of the party, the expert said.