Media Development Foundation organized workshop for the representatives of media on the theme of covering ethnical and religious minority stories at Ombudsman’s Office on march 11. The meeting was attended by Ombudsman – Giorgi Tugushi.

Media Development Foundation is implementing the media monitoring on covering ethnical and religious minority issues in Georgian media means from January 1, 2010. The project is implementing by The United Nations Association of Georgia (UNAG) and Eurasia Partnership Foundation (EPF) within the frames of the program "National Integration and Tolerance in Georgia” funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). 7 common-national and 8 regional newspapers as well as 5 TV companies are in the sphere of interest of the media monitoring.

Quantitative and qualitative methods will be used to conduct the monitoring. The goal of the quantitative monitoring is to reveal how active Georgian media is in covering religious and ethnical themes. The qualitative research is used to reveal the facts of covering of ethnical and religious minority issues with violation of international standards by media means. Namely the cases of discrimination and stereotypization.

Representatives of the foundation introduce the intermediate results of the monirtoring to the representatives of media and to the reporesentatives of non- governmental organizations interested in this issue and discussed the concrate examples of stereotypization and discrimination with them. The participants agreed to interchange with information permanently.