According to Media Development Foundation Monitoring Results Georgian Media Covers Minority Issues through Violation of Standards

Since January 1 2010 Media Development Foundation has been monitoring the Georgian-language media coverage of ethnic and religious minority issues. On March 11, at the Public Defender's Office, the Foundation representatives introduced the journalists the outcome of the monitoring conducted in the recent two months.

The monitoring was conducted on five national TV companies, seven central and eight regional newspapers. As a result of the monitoring Georgian media turned out to be scarcely covering minority issues and the coverage whatever conducted is carried out through the breach of standards.

According to the result of the survey the minority issues are more frequently covered in the newspapers than on televisions, therefore we come across discriminative statements and incorrect attitude towards the aforementioned issue in the newspapers.

According to Kate Mskhiladze, Director, Media Development Foundation the problem is rather acute but in line with the recent two-week results the number of discriminative statements has decreased which, according to Mskhiladze, might be due to the aforementioned project since the weekly outcome of the monitoring is delivered to over 250 journalists.

The USAID-funded project is being implemented within the framework of National Integration and Tolerance in Georgia program by UN Georgia and Eurasia Partnership Foundation.

According to the authors of the project the monitoring being conducted is quantitative and qualitative. The goal of the quantitative monitoring is to find out how actively Georgian media covers religious and ethnic minority issues while the goal of the qualitative study is finding violations of international standards for the coverage of minority issues, in particular the cases of discrimination and stereotypization.

The reporting period runs from January1, 2010 to the end of May 2010. The field of interest of the monitoring is the news outlets of the Georgian Public Broadcasting (GPB) and Rustavi 2, Imedi, Maestro and Kavkasia TVs as well as the newspaper such as the 24 Hours, Rezonansi, Akhali Taoba, Alia, Asaval Dasavali, Kviris Palitra, Georgian Times; Regional press, in particular the P.S.; Akhali Gazeti (Kutaisi), Samkhretis Karibche (Akhaltsikhe), Kakhetis Khma (Kakheti), Tavisufali Sitkva (Kartli), Batumelebi (Adjara), Ghia Boklomi (Samgerelo), Guria News (Guria).

Reporting to Media.ge Tamar Khorbaladze of the Media Development Foundation said the publication of monitoring results are not aimed at censoring any specific means of media but to avoid further wrongdoings.

Emphasizing the results of the monitoring to Media.ge Public Defender Giorgi Tughushi said the coverage of minority issues is an issue of high importance. According to him Georgian media ether fails to cover the topic or covers in a negative context.

"Media assumes key role to make minorities feel as normal citizens. The remarks found as a result of the monitoring should be taken into account by Georgian journalists. In a multi-national country like Georgia xenophobic statements and discrimination of minorities is strictly inadmissible," said Public Defender.