Shushan Stepanyan, #CivilNetCheck
During the “28 minutes” program broadcast by the Franco-German Arte TV channel on March 24, a geopolitical map showing Turkey and the adjacent countries was displayed. However, Armenia was missing from the map, and its territory was marked as part of Azerbaijan.
The channel’s error received significant attention in the Armenian media field. Pro-government news sites Armtimes.am, Civic.am, Medianews.am, and the Baghramyan 26 Telegram channel claimed that, in reality, pro-Russian circles were trying to spread anti-French sentiments in Armenia.
“In the actual video recording of the program, Armenia is visible with its internationally recognized borders,” the articles stated. Thus, these media outlets were attempting to deny the fact of the broadcast with the incorrect map.
Later, on March 25, the TV channel officially apologized for displaying the incorrect map, having already corrected it in the republished video of the program.
#CivilNetCheck has followed up on the confusion surrounding the Franco-German TV channel.
The channel’s apology and the edited map
The “28 Minutes” program broadcast on March 24 was dedicated to the protests taking place in Turkey. One of the program guests was Armenian political scientist Kaits Minasyan. In conversation with #CivilNetCheck, Minasyan confirmed that the channel did indeed initially publish an incorrect map. Subsequently, the program was removed from the channel’s website, and a new version with an edited map was uploaded. According to the political scientist, not only Armenia’s borders but also those of Lebanon and Israel were incorrectly represented in the original map.
“I wasn’t paying attention and didn’t notice that Armenia wasn’t on the map, otherwise, I would certainly have commented. It wasn’t intentional. I contacted them, as did others, to have the program edit that map. […] There was nothing anti-Armenian about it,” Minasyan reported.
The Nouvelles d’Arménie media, operating in France, also quickly responded to the incident, demanding that the TV channel acknowledge the mistake and issue a public apology. Armenians in France initiated a petition on change.org demanding clarifications and correction of the error.
The very next day, on March 25, at the end of the broadcast “28 minutes” program, host Elisabeth Quin publicly apologized for the incident.
“The entire editorial team of the ‘28 minutes’ program extends its apologies. In particular, we apologize to our Armenian friends for the incorrect map shown during yesterday’s discussion about Turkey. Therefore, thank you again for your understanding; this was a collective and regrettable, but entirely unintentional mistake,” the host declared.
It should be noted that the media outlets that had previously claimed the incident was an attempt by pro-Russian circles to sow anti-French sentiments later also covered Arte’s official apology, effectively refuting their previous claims.
