Media Part of the Debate in Georgian Election

With just over a week to go before Georgia's parliamentary vote, attention is increasingly focusing on how the country's television reporters are affecting voter sympathies.

"Journalists cover press conferences and air politicians' statements, but that's all," said Maia Mikashavidze, dean of the Caucasus School of Journalism and Media Management in Tbilisi. "There are no follow-up questions why it happened, why he or she said this. ... in the end, the voters suffer because of it."

In its April 2008 interim report on Georgia's election environment, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's observer mission took issue with coverage of the election campaign. Observer mission media analyst Rasto Kuzel said that monitoring of national broadcasters Rustavi-2 and Mze (part of the same company as Rustavi-2) and local broadcasters Adjara and Kavkasia "all show [a] lack of balance."

The stations provide "overwhelmingly positive and neutral coverage" for the governing United National Movement, while opposition coverage swings more neutral than positive, he continued.

A string of boycotts during April could have contributed to that imbalance. The nine-party United Opposition Movement ran a nearly month-long boycott of Rustavi-2 and Mze for allegedly biased coverage that was suspended on April 19. In turn, Rustavi-2 announced that it was suspending coverage of the opposition bloc for insults delivered by Movement leader Levan Gachechiladze and supporters. The two sides finally resumed communications on April 28.

The frequent intersection between official and campaign events could also play a role. On May 7, Rustavi-2, Mze, Adjara TV and Georgian Public Broadcasting all aired a 20-minute segment from a meeting between President Mikheil Saakashvili, cabinet members and regional officials about plans to revive Kutaisi, Georgia's second largest city. Promises of such social welfare projects have featured prominently in the National Movement's campaign.

"The media should not only be engaged in [the] positive description of projects which are submitted by the government, but the media should also play a role to question and also [to] offer a critical point of view whether the public money is [used] properly or whether there are some problems," said Kuzel.

As was mentioned in the OSCE's presidential election reports, Kuzel noted, "there is still visibility of political influence on the main TV networks. This, of course, could prevent the media outlet from offering more balanced coverage."

Based on its program lineup, however, Georgian television's interest in mixing up its election coverage would appear to be running strong.

In addition to its popular political talk show PrimeTime, Rustavi-2 has unveiled two new talk shows (Answer the People and Triangle) that focus on political debates and viewer Q&As.

Mze, owned by Rustavi-2, has restricted its election programming to brief news reports about the campaign. Although Imedi TV, once the most popular Georgian TV outlet, has returned to the air, it will not be broadcasting news programs until after the May 21 parliamentary vote.

Meanwhile, Georgian Public Broadcasting, a key target for opposition criticism during the January presidential elections, receives cautious kudos from the OSCE for improving the balance of its campaign coverage.

The station, now headed by a new president and board of trustees, airs election debates twice per week, a political platform presentation show once per week, and offers free airtime for party presentations three times per week. It has also signed a memorandum with political parties to provide "balanced, impartial and objective" coverage of their activities.

The coverage has already won the approval of one debutante opposition politician. "Public television's coverage is the most objective compared with the others," said Magda Anikashvili, a former Imedi TV anchor now running for parliament with the newly formed Christian-Democratic Movement.

Nonetheless, as with Rustavi-2 and Mze, the OSCE observer mission found that public television "devoted significant and favorable coverage to activities of the authorities, outside the campaign context, thus benefiting candidates with a pro-government orientation."

A recent call by President Saakashvili for government ministers and regional governors to refrain from taking part in the campaign has changed little, she added.

The predominance of United National Movement advertisements sparks much of that frustration. The party dominates paid advertising on television – spots can cost anywhere from $16,000 for 30 seconds (Rustavi-2; evening PrimeTime talk show) to $1,500 per 30 seconds (Mze; evening newscast). The United Opposition Movement and the Christian-Democratic Movement are so far the only opposition parties to have taken out fee-based TV ads.

Free time slots – ranging from 30 seconds per hour on private stations to 60 seconds per hour on Georgian Public Broadcasting – are available for parties that received more than 4 percent of the vote in Georgia's 2004 parliamentary elections and 3 percent of the vote in its 2006 local elections.

Billboards are also cause for some rancor.

In an apparent bid to reduce the omnipresence of ruling party ads in Tbilisi streets, Saakashvili recently called for the National Movement to hand over billboard space to opposition parties "to let them introduce to society what they want to do for the country." To date, no party has taken him up on the offer.

One opposition election campaign budget manager, however, says that money is not the main issue. While ad placement companies may not openly refuse to sell ad space to a party, reasons are usually found to block the deal, alleged the Republican Party's election campaign fund manager, Gigla Agulashvili.

"They say that conditions have changed, they delay signing the contract or use other arguments and ways to avoid the deal with us as soon as they get to know who we are," said Agulashvili. "It is hard to say whether it is businesses being careful, trying to avoid possible