Misleading and phony material; Fip refutes that which is irrefutable

Fip.am news website has distorted the facts and claimed that Minister of Justice Grigor Minasyan misinterpreted the data in the Corruption Perceptions Index. The author of the article cited the remarks that Grigor Minasyan made at the session of the Government during which the Minister righteously mentioned that the year was unfavourable in terms of the fight against corruption around the world, as a number of countries recorded a setback in the Index. The Minister brought the examples of Ireland, Iceland and Georgia, informing that the countries lost 3 points, and Armenia improved its indicator by one point compared to the previous year. The media outlet noted that Iceland declined by 2 points, not 3, while Ireland maintained the indicator of the previous year. The author of the article deemed this circumstance to be sufficient to accuse the Minister, distort the facts and present them the wrong way. However, besides Iceland, another 8 EU member states, including Sweden, Poland, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Portugal, Lithuania and Greece, as well as a number of other advanced countries declined, which makes more affirmative the claim of the Minister that Armenia gaining one point is a major achievement. During the session of the Government, instead of bringing as an example one EU member state that declined by 3 points, Grigor Minasyan indicated the name of another EU member state as an example. The media outlet presented this circumstance as a "serious" distortion. Even though the author of the article accepts the fact that the data indicated by the Minister in regard to Georgia are fully accurate, nevertheless, the author of the article overlooked this circumstance when choosing his or her manipulative title and accusing Grigor Minasyan of presenting the wrong data. As for the phrase "The one point of Armenia highly assessed" which drew the attention of the author of the article, besides the aforementioned indicators, we deem it necessary to remind that after 2018, Armenia rose by 12 points in the Corruption Perceptions Index, making the indicator go from 35 to 47.

We fully hope that from now on, when publishing articles, the news website will take the time to study the data that are presented, will take into consideration the substance of the material and will refrain from committing crude violations of journalism ethics with phony and misleading titles.