By Paul Vartan Sookiasian
One participant stood out as allies of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s regime gathered for a second consecutive year for the incredible spectacle of its Shusha Global Media Forum in the heart of Nagorno-Karabakh, a region that was brutally starved and ethnically cleansed only last year. Alongside the typical roster of Azerbaijani lobbyists and affiliates, the presence of Rebecca McLaughlin-Eastham raised eyebrows, raising the question why an executive producer and anchor would participate in a dictator’s sideshow representing Europe’s once-respected leading broadcaster.
CivilNet repeatedly reached out to Euronews, McLaughlin-Eastham, the Media Forum itself, and other participants for answers. While none responded, some answers may be found in this deeper-dive into Euronews, which has an ongoing sponsorship deal with the Azerbaijan Tourism Board.
Founded by the European Broadcasting Union to bring a European perspective to the 24-hour news phenomenon pioneered by CNN in the United States, Euronews reaches more than 400 million homes in 160 countries. As Europe’s leading news channel, it has had a strong reputation, calling itself unbiased and “unapologetically impartial.”
This is of course in stark contrast to Azerbaijan, where the free press NGO Reporters Without Borders says: “Virtually the entire media sector is under official control, and state-owned television is the most popular information source. No independent television or radio is transmitted from within the country, and all print newspapers with a critical stance have been shut down.”
It was with Orwellian audacity typical of the Aliyev regime then that it would select the theme of this year’s media forum as “Unmasking False Narratives: Confronting Disinformation,” with its keynote question-and-answer session with President Aliyev moderated by Euronews’s representative on July 20. Rebecca McLaughlin-Eastham’s presence used Euronews’s reputation to bring credence to the event and Aliyev’s statements within it, a form of ‘mediawashing’ akin to Azerbaijan’s ongoing environmental ‘greenwashing’ through its hosting of the UN COP29 climate conference. Why an allegedly unbiased media outlet would consent to this is hard to fathom, but may have links to recent changes within the company.
In an agreement finalized in 2022, the vast majority of Euronews was sold amid falling revenues to the Portuguese fund manager Alpac Capital, whose CEO Pedro David is the son of Mario David, a former member of the European Parliament and former advisor to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Reporters Without Borders calls Orbán “a predator of press freedom… who has built a true media empire subject to his party’s orders… while independent media outlets… are subject to political, economic, and regulatory pressures.”
Orbán notoriously has had close links to the Aliyev regime for over a decade. He first made headlines in 2012 when he extradited the convicted ax-murderer of an Armenian serviceman to Azerbaijan where he was given a hero’s welcome and various gifts.
It was recently confirmed by a journalistic investigation that more than one-third of the 150 million euro Alpac spent to purchase Euronews came from Hungarian tax-payer money through a fund with links to Orbán’s Fidesz party. A confidential memo from the Chief Information Officer of Hungary’s sovereign wealth fund revealed an ideological motive behind the purchase, outlining plans for Euronews to become an influential force to “mitigate left-wing ideology and prejudice” in line with Orbán’s goals of promoting right wing ideas and beliefs globally.
Furthermore, the investigation cites an internal document in which editorial representatives specifically state they are not permitted to report freely about Azerbaijan and other autocratic regimes which sponsor the channel, saying: “Either we are prevented from covering [certain] topics, or we are forced to address them with very precise instructions so as not to offend customers, or we are forced to praise a customer in the news.”
Orban himself had been in Shushi just two weeks prior to the forum for a summit of the Organization of Turkic States, a visit which EU officials quickly distanced themselves from. Hungary also participated in the Media Forum, where its state news agency MTI signed a cooperation agreement with its Azerbaijani counterpart AZERTAC.
As for Euronews’s participation, perhaps the most overt of McLaughlin-Eastham’s leading questions during the keynote with Aliyev was to about the event’s theme of confronting disinformation. Aliyev used the opportunity to contrast this portrayal of himself against Armenians, who he condemned as a source of disinformation and false narratives.
Aliyev also took his time in the spotlight to deploy his racist trope of being opposed through disinformation from “the international world controlled by the Armenian diaspora”, while describing his plans for “Western Azerbaijan”, his recently-coined term for the modern state of Armenia. He encouraged international media organizations and NGOs to get involved in the issue. Yet throughout the three-day conference dedicated to issues faced by the press, it does not appear anything was said about Aliyev’s mass arrests of journalists and activists, or the lock he holds over free expression.
Aliyev’s last word in the session was to say “the Karabakh victory [attack] was a wonderful message to many destinations. When we join our hands, our fist becomes heavy. The iron becomes stronger…”, bringing back his imagery of the “Iron Fist” many observers decry as fascistic and which has been immortalized by statues of fists buttressed by killer drones erected by Aliyev to mark his victory all over what was once Armenian-populated Karabakh. In response, McLaughlin-Eastham disregarded that significance by calling this celebration of brutal ethnic cleansing “a perfect note to wrap up discussions.”
