Defense Ministry calls on media to act responsibly while reporting military events
By sara Rajabova
In the process of spreading information, it is necessary to take into account the particularities of the military services and have this point in mind that the Defense Ministry is a closed body, Spokesperson of Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry, Lieutenant-Colonel Vagif Dergahli told Trend Agency on September 2.
"We are open to constructive criticism and objective remarks. We call for responsibility and professionalism. Prejudice, hatred and lack of coordination is inadmissible in the process of spreading information about the activities of the army," he said.
Dergahli stressed that monitoring the media outlets revealed that some of them have unprofessional approach towards the mentioned issues.
"Despite repeated recommendations that spreading information containing the numbers of the military units of Azerbaijani armed forces, their goals and tasks, the areas of deployment and redeployment routes is banned, some media outlets keep on mentioning this data in their material," the spokesperson said.
"The leadership of the armed forces held a meeting of the Ministry's board in the frontal zone.
For security reason, we had decided to inform the media of the meeting next day but some media outlets spread the news shortly after the meeting. As another example, a serviceman is killed on the line of contact and investigation is underway. Media outlets spread information indicating the name and surname of the serviceman before the family of the victim was informed about this. This is inadmissible."
He also touched upon the problem related to the disinformation spread by Armenian media.
"Armenian media outlets spread disinformation about our army. Unfortunately, some media outlets in Azerbaijan make this disinformation public without verifying the data. Moreover, inaccurate information about the army, its situation and losses on the contact line is spread by some people who present themselves as 'military experts'. In many cases, the content of the 'news' that is used by Armenian media is similar with the opinion of these 'experts'," Dergahli added.