Aliya Haqverdi, Baku

Thus, ANS TV has been closed for good. Forever. Not for a month, as it was first intended, but they have been deprived of their licence for good.

Facebook’s newsfeed is boiling over. And that’s not because ‘the public is outraged’, but rather because everyone on their friends’ list are journalists. So, they have to decide whether to be upset or to rejoice. Which is more appropriate?

To put it in more general and simple terms, ANS is a very ancient Azerbaijani TV channel, and there is also a radio station with the same name, as well as the anspress.com website. At first, the TV channel was a ‘straight-shooter’, then it was said that it strayed off into racketeering and after that, that it had tritely ‘sold out to the authorities.’ Come on! Who is going to grieve at it being taken off the air?

I pity the staff who lost their jobs. The cameramen. The cleaners. Some people said it served them right. They should have thought that once they had ‘a master’, he, sooner or later, would have torn them apart.

However, in our country the media outlet without a master is ‘bitten in half’ even faster.

And everything actually started with interviewing a disgraced Turkish politician, Gulen. But they haven’t even published this interview. They’ve just made an announcement.
What’s a discourteous TV channel compared to the tender feelings for the brotherly nation? Nothing.

Generally speaking, since the journalists had unanimously defended Eynulla Fatullayev, this ‘prisoner of conscience’, and then he got out of jail and became a local Kiselev (I would say, Kiselev’s back leg equivalent, as our saying goes), that craft solidarity has noticeably faded.

This case doesn’t change a picture of the Azerbaijani media scene, though closing actually the entire media holding for that reason is symptomatic. And all that confirms my belief that it’s not the right time for all of us, the remnants, rudiments and atavisms of the Azerbaijani journalism, to cooperate and group together. Every man for himself. Only small, inconspicuous and maneuverable ones will manage to survive in the tough time we are going through.

P.S. There is an opinion that the ANS administration will file a cassation appeal in court, it will be sustained and that will be an end of the ‘showcase’. Whereas, we will never find out, who was behind all that, what one wanted to show and for whom it was all intended. And does it actually matter?

Published: 29.07.2016