MP blames Kyrgyz national TV channel of biased reporting

AKIPRESS.COM - The state TV channel's budget is 586,185,000 soms, including 396,770,000 soms from the state budget, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of OTRK Jypar Jeksheev said.
MP Irina Karamushkina asked who decides what to air.
Jeksheev said it's a collegial body, an expert board, which decides what to show on the channel. "But we must report official information from parliament, president and government. We sometimes have no time to cover social themes," Jeksheev said.
Karamushkina criticized the national TV channel of biased reporting.
"Now we see an unusual situation in the country. Yesterday, opposition party led by [ex-President Almazbek] Atambayev gave a press conference, but your reporters were not there. OTRK did not cover that. Thus, you hindered the population from getting full information about what's going on in the country. People must be free to choose what to watch. There is only one opposition party and you failed to give their version. You're pretending that nothing is happening in Kyrgyzstan. OTRK works selectively, you're violating the rights of citizens," Karamushkina said.
Jeksheev said they are unable to give balanced reporting and said assured that he "wants TV channels to be like Russian ones, where no one is afraid of anybody."