Viasna activists top media reference rating

Ales Bialiatski, the imprisoned leader of the Human Rights Center “Viasna”, is one of the most cited civil society leaders, occupying the second place in the media reference rating with 259 mentions in 2013.

The study's author, Pauliuk Bykouski, says he was “mentioned more as a person who is rather told about than as a person whose letters are quoted.” It should be noted that Ales Bialiatski is one of the few members of non-governmental human rights organizations mentioned in the state media.

Valiantsin Stefanovich ranked fifth in the rating, mentioned 59 times as a commentator. Tatsiana Reviaka took the 12th place, with 34 references in the media.

Among other human rights defenders in the ranking are Aleh Hulak and Hary Pahaniayla (BHC), and Alena Tankachova (Lawtrend).

Using the Google Advanced Search, Pauliuk Bykouski researched the websites of BelaPAN, BelTA, "Nasha Niva", "Narodnaya Volya", "Solidarity”, naviny.by, «Sovetskaya Belorussia", "Zviazda", "Belorusy I Rynok", "Belgazeta" to find out the quantitative reference of the country’s civil society in the news.

Pauliuk Bykouski concluded that NGOs provide little information occasions, when looking at publications. Accordingly, one might think that these occasions have little public importance and may be uninteresting to the media.

More results of the survey entitled "The Work of Belarusian NGOs in the Media" can be found in an online presentation.