Posted on: 06 Feb 2012

Media Development Foundation, MDF presents monitoring results on the theme –Coverage of Cultural Issues by Georgian Media. The monitoring was carried out by the journalist – Nino Kvirikashvili within the frames of the projectMedia Monitoring – for Professional Media. The project is supported by the foundationOpen Sociaty – Georgian Foundation, OSFG. The present thesis contains the analysis of the articles published and TV stories covered on cultural themes during the period of October 10, 2011 to November 10, 2011.

The subjects for the analysis were the publications of the newspapersRezonansi, Kviris Palitraand24 Hours, as well as TV stories covered by the prime-time news programs of the following TV companies –Public Broadcasting Television, Rustavi 2, Imedi, KavkasiaandMaestro.

The criteria for analysing published materials were: accuracy, balance, the number and specification of sources, writing style, structure of the material, quotations, lead, visual relevans of the material.

The survey revealed that Georgian media shows it’s interest towards cultural issues, but in terms of compliance with the spectrum of issues, diversity and journalistic standards is full of gaps. For example, the theme is often absolutly monotonous – topic matchings are frequent, (for the example ofMoambe, KurieriandQronika), sometimes not only topics but TV stories entirely repeat one another. We see the same respodents, the same voice over and even the same shots of TV stories covered by different channels.

Generally the research showed that TV stories are more balanced and somehow closer to professional standards than printed publications. However, at the same time the covarage and analysis of cultural issues is minimized by TV media compared to press.

Finally, in both cases we face one and the same problem – sources are less significant, journalists speak using almost the same texts, frequently is practiced propaganda and not journalism (this mainly concerns TV) and there are cases, when journalist is biased (this concerns TV as well as printed media) in both cases we come accross the problem of inappropriate approach to the issue and scandalous tone that, once again means that the most part of Georgian journalism is still far from modern international standards.

The detailed monitoring report is attached.


Coverage of Cultural Issues by Georgian Media (available in Georgian)