I wrote this article on May 27, a day
after the Grand Final of the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest, with the intention
of having it published immediately on Media.am. I submitted it to the editors
of this Armenian website that publishes media analysis and critique; however,
due to various factors (not having to do with the content or angle of the piece,
but rather with technical matters on the organization’s part), it was not
published. So I decided to publish it here on my blog. I realize it’s been nearly
3 weeks since the Eurovision contest took place, so I hope you’ll forgive me
for publishing old news. I spent a lot of time working on this piece and then
waiting for it to be published on Media.am — and then when it wasn’t, I decided
it had to be published somewhere. So here it is.
"A
few buildings, a bit of culture and some clouds. What all this has to do with
the 'Land of Fire' I don’t know," said one of the announcers on Armenian
Public TV, commenting on the images of Azerbaijan shown between acts of the
Grand Final of the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest held on May 26 in Baku. And so
began the tirade of superfluous remarks and ridicule by Armenian hosts on the
H1 channel, which decided to air the contest even though the country had opted
not to participate this year.
