Code of ethics, adopted at the General Meeting of Yerevan Press Club on 30 April 2002.

We, the members of the Yerevan Press Club, united as journalists, endorse the rights of freedom of expression and freedom of receipt and dissemination of information as the basis for our activities. We strive for the establishment of a free and democratic press, and we are guided by the Code of Professional Ethics, which includes:

– Objectivity and impartiality in presenting information;

– Inadmissibility of the distortion of facts, slander, hiding of true information or dissemination of false information, or using professional rights for selfish purposes;

– Responsibility for personal comments;

– Realization of the social and political consequences of journalist’s
activities and moral responsibility for them;

– Getting information from official sources, journalistic investigation and purchase of information;

– Keeping in secret confidential information sources;

– Purchase and sales of information, but not of the journalist’s own
principles;

– Realization of the fact that a journalist’s professional activities stop if he/she directly participates in military actions and conflicts;

– Incompatibility of journalistic activities with his/her collaboration
with secret services;

– Protection of professional rights of his/her colleagues and respect for the rules of open competition;

– Political, ethnic and religious tolerance;

– Respect for human rights;

– Journalists’ solidarity regardless of political views.

The Press Club protects the right of a journalist to turn down a task if its implementation violates one of the principles of the present Code.