TURKMEN STATE TV COVERAGE OF ELECTION RECEPTION

C O N F I D E N T I A L ASHGABAT 001475 SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR SCA/CEN, PPD, DRL E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/07/2018 TAGS: PREL PHUM SCUL KPAO TX SUBJECT: TURKMEN STATE TV COVERAGE OF ELECTION RECEPTION NOT BROADCAST REF: ASHGABAT 1470 Classified By: Charge d'Affaires a.i. Sylvia Reed Curran for reasons 1.4 (B) and (D). ¶1. (C) Although a TV crew from the state-controlled "Watan" TV channel eagerly attended and filmed parts of post's election reception on November 5 (reftel),coverage of the event was entirely absent from that evening,s broadcast, which was instead filled with typical, boring state media stories. In a phone call on November 6, the Watan news director told an Embassy staff member that the TV channel had edited and finalized the story about the election event and passed it "to the ministry8 for review. Curiously, the "ministry" never returned the tape to Watan, with no explanation. Embassy staff had never before heard that level of specificity on how news stories are approved prior to broadcast. ¶2. (C) Also noteworthy was the news director's reference to the "ministry." All TV stations are part of the Ministry of Culture and TV/Radio Broadcasting, so this implied it was passed to a different ministry. The Embassy staff member asked &to the ministry? Which ministry?8 The news director nervously dodged the question and did not specify. In prior cases, media contacts have noted that their stories had been clearly turned down. In some of those cases, they re-edited the material and still managed to have something &less risky8 broadcast or published. ¶3. (C) COMMENT: We can only speculate about what exactly happened to the election reception coverage, but it does appear to have fallen victim to the government's active censorship process. In this particular case, the excitement and implications of American democracy and elections may have been just too sensitive for the censors to even respond to Watan. This is especially disappointing because President Berdimuhamedov has publicly called for coverage of international news. Watan missed covering a huge international news story, even though it was easy to cover with an Ashgabat perspective. We,ll see if Turkmenistan channel, which also covered the event, still carries a story on the reception in the next few days. END COMMENT. CURRAN