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https://www.asiaplustj.info/ru/news...o-covid-19-govoryat-goskanali-v-tadzhikistane
Coronavirus officially: what state channels in Tajikistan say about COVID-19
14:21, todayAuthor: Newreporter.org
24 4 2 2679
For the vast majority of the population of Tajikistan, television is the main source of information. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which seems to be covering the republic with all its might, the demand for local information among the television audience is growing even more. However, if you believe the picture that Tajik state channels are broadcasting right now, people in protective suits should save the whole country, pouring disinfectants on the street from morning to night.
About what Tajik state channels still show during the pandemic, - in the material of the "New Reporter".
After exactly one week ago, on April 30, in Tajikistan officially confirmed the presence of COVID-19, state television channels had no choice: they had to talk about coronavirus. Of course, there were signs of its presence on state channels until last Friday.
For example, they told how the coronavirus spread in China, then in Italy, the USA, showed crowded clinics, relayed the comments of foreign doctors on the air, but no connection was made between Tajikistan and the pandemic.
A little closer to hour X on the channels appeared a social advertisement on measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19. On Tochikiston's air, beautiful young girls in satin dresses, with bright makeup and high hairstyles showed that you can’t press the elevator button with your finger, and if you bend it and touch the button with the phalanx, you can. Kissing at the greeting is forbidden, but walking without a mask and gloves, but greeting is allowed with a hand to the heart while being at a distance is allowed.
After the Tajiks were told from the “high rostrum” that there is a coronavirus in the country, information about it appeared in the final news of the Tajik TV channel. For example, on the evening of May 2, in the Akhbor issue, the presenter first said that the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 had increased in the country to 76, in the evening of May 3 - to 128. This news was indeed news, and for some time independent media became transmit them with reference to the main television channel of the country.
The presenter transmitted information without a picture and additional explanations - only specific numbers; however, the theme of the coronavirus still continued. The authors of the stories of “Akhbor” showed huge shelving in warehouses, which, to the eyeballs, were filled with boxes of medicines, antiseptics and protective equipment, purchased with money from the president’s fund.
Then they showed people in protective suits who watered the roads in Dushanbe or Khorog with disinfectants, and representatives of the ruling People’s Democratic Party, who crowd the private sector in the cities of the republic and distribute brochures with information about the prevention of the virus and reusable masks.
Tochikiston devoted the rest of the final news releases to agriculture, in their stories satisfied farmers — without masks and gloves, of course — worked in the fields, showed their land, predicted super-harvest 2020 and especially clicked on potatoes, prices for which jumped sharply in the end of April. Naturally, prices were not mentioned in the plots, only about how many there will be in this year.
In the same scenario, almost all of the news broadcasts on the Tochikiston channel took place over the past week. Full warehouses, good volunteers, women sewing protective masks, and a lot of disinfection.
State journalists, apparently, especially liked the last topic. You can include any state channel in prime time and with a high probability of getting on it. And the picture is almost always the same: fire engines are slowly driving along empty roads of cities and towns and pouring protective equipment on them; here, people in protective suits with devices behind their backs walk along the sidewalks and spray everything around with calcium hypochlorite or smoke them.
What is the use of such a large-scale "cleaning" - the authors do not really explain, but it all looks really impressive.
Clean hospitals, calm doctors
By the middle of the working week, doctors still appeared on the Tochikiston TV channel. In snow-white gowns, amid licked chambers with empty, brand-new beds, tucked in fresh linens, doctors told reporters how they had everything and how they were ready for everything.
At this point, independent media, both in texts and in video, were already transmitting information that doctors were running from hospitals, they lacked personal protective equipment, and they use swimming goggles, which they found.
By the way, despite the fact that hospitals are overcrowded in the country, and even according to official figures, the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 and deaths due to it is growing rapidly, the authorities of the republic do not seem to be going to declare an emergency following the example of neighboring republics. This can be judged even by state channels: they do not talk about the benefits of self-isolation or quarantine.
They don’t talk about other important things - for example, where to go if symptoms of COVID-19 appear, and whether to go; how to protect their elderly parents, who are at risk and, according to Tajik tradition, live in homes with many children and grandchildren.
They do not speak on state channels about the economic consequences of the pandemic - for example, about the situation of labor migrants, who for the most part were left without work, and therefore without a livelihood; about the difficult situation of small and medium-sized businesses, which are rapidly losing revenue around the world, including in Tajikistan.
In principle, there is no such topic on Tajik television in a more relaxed time. Moreover, reality has disappeared from their airs now, when the epidemic has spread in the republic so much that there is simply no way to hide it.
The first attempts to explain at least something to its audience were made by the Jahonnamo television. Last weekend, they began to invite experts to their studio - for example, the head of the republican center for a healthy lifestyle, Surayo Anvarova, who talked about preventive measures and symptoms of the disease.
Earlier this week, a large interview with the head of the International Institute for Health and Surveillance in New York, Dr. Arash Alai, a native of Iran, appeared on the air of this channel. Journalists had a conversation with him on Skype, in which the doctor explained in detail and clearly what COVID-19 is, how to protect yourself from it and how the pandemic is going. The interview lasts more than an hour, and now it is shown several times a day by all state television channels, including the children's Bahoriston.
Putting on the air the same programs and news stories for state television channels in Tajikistan is a common thing. So, in addition to an interview with a virologist, the same news items were broadcast on all state channels. And by the way, the president of Tajikistan, Emomali Rahmon, who usually holds 95 percent of all issues on state channels, was almost nowhere to go this week.
The heroes of the plots continued their speeches with thanks to the president. But the head of state was shown only during the meeting, which took place immediately after the recognition of the presence of coronavirus, and they reported on Rahmon after his talks with the presidents of Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan.
Tajik opposition leaders who live abroad began to spread rumors in social networks that the president had left the republic. Soon they were denied by his adviser Abdujabbor Rakhmonzoda, he said this in an interview with the state-owned news agency Khovar.
On the eve of Victory Day, May 8, in the morning, the President of Tajikistan spoke on all state television channels, congratulated veterans and promised that the republic would cope with the coronavirus.
“We managed to keep the situation under control for four months, but at the end of April the first cases of infection of our citizens were recorded, and today hundreds of people in our country are infected with them,” the president said.
Between informational plots, the entire state television of the country remained true to itself: Safina and Tojikiston played concerts all day, young people read verses of Tajik-Persian classics on their airs against the backdrop of mountain landscapes.
Humorescans, rallies with hidden cameras, and even pieces of Charlie Chaplin’s paintings went to the Jahonnamo. All the films that were aired on Tajik channels this week turned out to be comedies: Operation Y and Shurik's Other Adventures, Odnoklassniki.ru: On CLICKy Luck, Fantomas raged.
Probably, in this way the channels tried to support the bewildered population, which, not without the help of state-owned media, until the last sacredly believed that a pandemic could really bypass Tajikistan.
And after the presence of the virus was recognized in the republic, people did not panic, as everyone feared, but was deeply discouraged.
This mood filled the whole country, and at first glance it might seem that it was caused by the insult of citizens to their state. However, every evening in the sleeping residential districts of Dushanbe, the familiar Akhbor music screen saver on the Tochikiston channel echoes.
People continue to fall on TV screens and listen to everything they say. And news stories about disinfectors like ghostbusters, or warehouses crammed full of drugs distract them from reality better than Fantomas.
In any case, some part of this audience continues to enter into heated debates with everyone who questions official information.
