Georgian media less free now than before Rose Revolution – Transparency International

In a report released a report Nov. 20 outlining the autonomy of Georgia’s television media, Transparency International said that Georgian television media is now less free and pluralistic than it was before Georgia’s pro-Western president, Mikheil Saakashvili took power.

The report stated that while broadcast legislation in Georgia is up to Western standards on paper, in reality, the regulatory body that handles television media is politicized and there is no transparency in the area of media ownership. Most Georgians receive their information solely from broadcast media.

Today, Georgia’s 27 broadcast channels have nearly identical news coverage after independent stations have been forced to sell out one by one to offshore companies which have changed management and editorial structures to reflect softer, pro-government stances, the report said.

“Right now we don’t have serious competition between the broadcasters,” says Hatia Jinjikhadze, head of Open Society Georgia Foundation’s (OSGF) Media Support Program. “Sometimes you see that in the regions, one correspondent works for all three national broadcasters. Before, they would send their people and compete for the best story. What you often see now is the same footage with different voice-overs. TV news look very much alike, even the sequence of the reports.” Tamar Rukhadze, a former Rustavi 2 news director who now co-runs the independent production studio GNS shares this assessment on the national channels’ programs: “There are no exclusive stories [aired on the national channels]; a lot of stories are reported, but when they are covered, important aspects are often left out.”

Furthermore, lax labor laws allow television broadcasters to terminate journalists who do not comply with editorial controls of coverage without explanation, or obligation to grant severance pay. Furthermore, journalists who voluntarily leave one broadcaster are unlikely to find positions in another because of a countrywide (and worldwide) squeeze on the budgets of news organizations, the report said.

One exception was a protest in May 2009, when 64 journalists, producers, cameramen and other employees of Imedi TV signed a petition, protesting against the channel’s editorial policy. The petition stated that the stations news had covered current events in an inadequate and biased way. According to the statement, the stations’ management had ordered journalists to refrain from covering problems of internally displaced people (IDPs) and ordered reporters to use biased wording: IDPs should be referred to as “affected” people, the cells used by the opposition during the protests had to be described as “cages” on air. The management also did not air parts of a speech by the Patriarch in which the head of the Georgian Orthodox Church called on the Georgian army not to use violence against protestors. Furthermore, cameramen were instructed not to show pictures of large groups of people when covering opposition protests. A person who signed the petition told TI Georgia that there were also lists of experts journalists should talk to and “black lists” of people that should not beinterviewed. According to this source, Imedi’s management pressured the signatories to withdraw their support for the petition after firing two of the initiators, accusing them of sabotage. Four others journalists and producers left the station voluntarily, citing censorship as the reason for quitting –all other employees withdrew their signatures.