Puzzled Press Service and Stray Media

Underorganized press conference and questions which were left unposed – these are the complaints the journalists had upon the completion of Bidzina Ivanishvili’s press conference. It is to note that the organizers kickstarted preparation for the meeting on the day of scheduling the event – an announcement was made on the accreditation of journalists, everyone had been warned of showing up on the scene at least an hour earlier. Media representatives were given entry to the residence in small groups so that the security guards were able to check visitors with no delay. Initially the entry was granted to cameramen, followed by photo correspondents and finally journalists, all of them were allocated relevant seats, and at the very beginning of the press conference the attendees were asked to switch cell phones off.

 “I cannot imagine organizing a bigger event,” said Irakli Tripolsky, Bidzina Ivanishvili’s press secretary reporting to Media.ge. This meeting turned out to be the first of the kind to him. “200 journalists arrived, 37 cameras … I was unable to curb those people, I wanted everyone to have a possibility to pose a question … there was no question Mr Bidzina would have no answer to. Journalists appeared more underorganizaed than us but I can understand them, all of them wanted to give a question. That was impossible. Instead of expected 30-40 minutes the conference lasted for an hour and 40 minutes. Most likely the hall too was not appropriate for the event of the kind.

I would like to express my gratitude to the public broadcaster – we had not been sure of being provided live coverage…”

The public broadcaster, to be more exact, its journalist had numerous complaints to the conference organizers and Bidzina Ivanishvili in particular. Checking journalists’ handbags by security guards was one of the complaints voiced. 

Irakli Tripolsky: “I received a call from Gia Chanturia telling me that the journalists were being checked handbags. I went downstairs and told security guards to stop doing this and they immediately did, afterwards I notified Gia Chanturia of it. I even made an apology to the journalists. Could not have been otherwise. They kept telling, no such security check is being carried out even at the UN. I have not been to the UN. So I would like once again apologize if there had been any problems.”

Bidzina Ivanishvili too made an apology to the society and journalists for the lack of experience in taking part in the event of the kind, therefore he

said he was a little bit excited but this statement failed to make some of the journalists appear friendly.  “Huuuh, I am watching press conference, journalists, Gosh, journalists – Walpurgis Night! Why such personal involvement, such manifested excitement, absolutely incomprehensible and a sign of disastrous lack of professionalism. Any hardest question is possible to be posed without such a hysterical intonation. Let these angry children watch at least Hard Talk! What is that? I no longer watch TV, we have gone so down, once we used to be leaders in the region,” the comment of the kind appeared on Facebook in the course of the press conference. And it was not the only response of the kind.

Whatever was today happening from journalists’ side and among the journalists during and before Bidzina Ivanishvili’s first-ever press conference once again gave a clear picture that the transparency of media ownership is the first and foremost necessity to provide treatment to unhealthy media in Georgia as well as in the whole civilized world. Without finding out who is actually standing behind particular mean of media it will be unclear why the groups of journalists associated with the authorities were standing at the entrance of the residence and giving weird questions to their colleagues: Did you obtain accreditation easily? Do you like it being kept waiting? Isn’t this kind of attitude annoying you?

More impressive, one can say, battle scenes, were performed in the course of the press conference: the representatives of the same means of media did not want to give away the mics they had got hold of, even though they were to be used by every single journalist invited to the meeting. Therefore the hall was filled with constant dispute, they were trying hard to convert press conference into an interview, in lieu of one two-three questions were given, taking no notice of other questions being concurrently posed to Ivanishvili. Most importantly they did not listen to answers to the questions posed even by themselves, let alone the ones given by others. All the aforementioned irritated the rest of the journalists and few minutes off of the launch of the press conference the Georgian media split into two for the audience sitting at TV sets.

Since when has the content of his/her question been more important to the journalist than the answer to it? Why is journalism being made into propaganda? How should a person holding a mic suss out that s/he is getting funny when starting to find out, in the course of a serious press conference, what the penguin ate – a swallow or a sparrow? Who is standing behind it all and what direction is he drifting Georgian journalism which – being split into two – violent minority on the one side and the majority driven to whistling - today happened to partake in an almost called-off press conference?