20 Years Later: Georgia
By Ketevan Khachidze Posted Apr 13 2010
A man reads a newspaper with Mikheil Saakashvili on the front page in the midst of the Georgian presidential elections of January 2004. Saakashvili went on to win the election and is currently president.
EPA Photo: Zurab Kurtsikidze
When U.S. President George W. Bush visited Georgia in 2005, he called the country “a beacon of democracy” in the region. He showered Georgia with praise for its democratization efforts compared to many other former USSR countries. But many today still question the country’s democratic record, with their most vocal criticism focusing on media issues.
Georgia’s democratic traditions, including those of media freedom, have not been time-honored. The country broke away from the Soviet Union to regain independence 19 years ago, and the window for freedom of speech for the Georgian media opened at that time.
Georgia’s experience does not convey a story of the Soviet printing press that is much different than other post-Soviet nations. The Central Committee of Communist Party of Georgia issued its official newspaper called Communist to publish the party’s orders, decisions and rules, and to report on the stunning results of Five-Year Plans – a series of almost utopian exercises aiming at economic development of the USSR – and other Soviet-style success stories. By the 1980s, the Communist had a circulation of 700,000 copies in a country of around five million people. Subscription to the newspaper was obligatory for all employed Soviet citizens. The Communist Party of Georgia appointed Communist editors and their deputies, which provided a safeguard ensuring that editorial content strictly followed the party line and Soviet ideology.
As the party’s grip started to loosen and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s political reforms, known as Perestroika, ushered in a new era in the late ‘80s, tons of dissident papers started to spring up in Georgia.
“Soviet journalists and Soviet printing outlets showed failure for evolution and adaptation and became extinct like dinosaurs,” said Levan Ramishvili from Liberty Institute, a Tbilisi-based research and advocacy NGO.
Gabriel Namtalashvili, a columnist for Svobodnaia Gruzia, is one of the few journalists who stayed in the industry. He joined the Russian-language Molodiozh Gruzii during his early 20s, and he still works for the same newspaper, renamed Svobodnaia Gruzia in the ‘90s.
Looking back, he recalls the change in press freedom over the years. “Journalists had to align stories to the dominant ideology,” he says. “But now there are no ideological borders, breaks or dogmas as were in the Soviet Georgia.”
The Georgian newspapers today are free from government censorship and the industry is considered pluralistic because there is diversity in newspaper ownership, content and views.
“While no direct censorship is exercised, other tools of control are applied,” said Malkhaz Gulashvili, owner of The Georgian Times Media Holding. “This is primarily curbing advertising revenue to the independent outlets.”
The Georgian print media is struggling to develop as cash flows to broadcast media, the dominant source of information for most Georgians. Gone is the day when the Georgian audience could only watch one channel, Channel 1. The bureaucrats affiliated with the Communist party managed the station, so it did not offer any live reporting because the Soviet security services filtered its programs.
Channel 1, which is now Georgian Public Broadcaster, is still being funded by state money, but the station has yet to regain the popularity it lost because of political bias and underfunding.
The other two major players, Rustavi 2 and Imedi, are also regarded as government mouthpieces. Both of the stations have nationwide access and a combined market share of 61 percent, according to TV MR GE, license holder of AGB Nielsen Media research in Georgia. Their editorial content is biased, and both stations are subsidized by mysterious owners. They are also not financially viable because of the limited size of the advertising market. Kavkasia TV and Maestro, the small channels which broadcast only in the capital, Tbilisi, openly side with the opposition, foregoing their neutrality.
The media bias does not go unnoticed by people at large. According to The Caucasus Resource Research Center (CRRC), which explored the opinion of the TV audience, 15 percent of Georgians fully agree with the statement that Georgian journalists serve the government’s interest, and only 3 percent fully disagree with it. Moreover, 47 percent of Georgians believe that there is no freedom of speech in Georgia and journalists cover events the way they are assigned by media executives. Only 34 percent believe in the opposite and that journalists cover events in unbiased way.
Nonetheless, the public is generally positive about the media’s performance. According to the survey conducted by CRRC in 2009, almost 40 percent of Georgians partially or fully trust the media. This percentage is higher than in neighboring Armenia (33 percent) and Azerbaijan (37 percent).
When journalists talk about freedom of speech, they often recall a Soviet joke: debating on the issue, an American boasts that he can go to the White House and shout “Down with Reagan!” with no consequences. The Soviet responds that he can equally go to the Red Square and shout “Down with Reagan!”
Whether in Georgia, Russia or the U.S., Georgians can equally criticize President Mikheil Saakashvili on the streets, on TV or in the newspapers with no consequences.
The message that Georgia’s friends are trying to deliver is simple: Georgia is not yet “a beacon of democracy.” It is not an unequivocal success story. We still have a long way to go.