TV in Turkey breaches ethical norms in depicting Armenia athlete’s sufferings from injury during World Weightlifting Championship

When I first watched Turkish TV report on world weightlifting championship where Armenian weightlifter Ara Khachatryan got seriously injured, I was horrified with the camera focus showing sufferings of the athlete. It was as if this was done deliberately to show his pain in all its graphical details. This is unacceptable under any circumstances. Considering Armenia-Turkey relations, such incidents have even higher levels of sensitivity.



News.am rightly argues that this was a breach of ethical norms and compares the way Turkish TV depicted the incident with the similar one by Chinese TV during Beijing Olympics.

Armenian weightlifter Ara Khachatryan (85 kg) was seriously injured in his elbow during the 2010 World Weightlifting Championship in Antalya, Turkey. However, the TRT (Turkish state television) grossly violated the code of professional ethics by showing close-up picture of the Armenian athlete, who was crying with pain.

Generally, in such cases TV rules stipulate shifting to long shot. Besides, the organizers did not provide shields that are usually used in such situations. World remembers the incident that occurred with Hungarian athlete during the Beijing Olympics when Janos Baranyai (77 kg) got similar injury. Let’s compare the Turkish and Chinese broadcasting of two incidents.