Kazakhstan media should have own opinion on international scandals: expert

Assel KaraulovaKazakhstan media has to form up its own policy and position when covering international scandals that allegedly involve Kazakhstan citizens, President of Kazakhstan Press Club Assel Karaulova told Tengrinews.kz during PR forum in Almaty.

She believes that the journalists should not merely copy the foreign media, like in the recent case with the CNN. After Boston bombings the American TV channel reported that Tsarnayev brothers moved to the U.S. from Kazakhstan. But the information turn out to be incorrect. Besides, two Kazakhstan students, Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov, were later apprehended in suspicion of connections with Tsarnaevs because they happened to be classmates of younger Tsarnaev.

"These young people became hostages of the big politics. Nobody will now try to investigate and understand the roots or how they ended up there. Meanwhile, this is a big case for the U.S. and the public opinion is very strong there and very supportive of any measures against manifestations of terrorism. People basically don't care where the students came from (or if they were truly guilty) and there are many political speculations here," Karaulova said. "Secondly, yes, the students acted silly. Why did that happened? It is no longer important. I think that our media has to form up their own policies and positions in such cases instead of just coping CNN or some international channels. Of course CNN is pro-American. Our journalists should investigate, study the situation better, find out about the students' relatives before making any statements. And we have to write about it to make sure that the situations become a lesson for the young generation," she said.

The annual PR forum has been held in Almaty for 9 years. The event is attended by media and PR professionals from different regions of Kazakhstan. Besides, the forum is also attended by the international PR experts from Ukraine, Great Britain, Russia and other countries.