Radios Dedicate Most Airtime to Government, Ruling Coalition and United National Movement – report

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Internews Georgia has released second interim report of radio monitoring during pre election period. According to the findings monitored radio channels dedicated most of airtime to the government, Georgian Dream Coalition and United National Movement.

At the same time stories were mainly limited to citing policy makers’ statements; Journalists seldom posed critical questions, never asked about their vision about the ways to tackle problems. Presidential candidates were covered when assessing opponents’ comments or meeting population.

The reporting period was running from July 16 to August 16. The monitoring is made possible within the framework of the EU and UNDP-funded project Professional Media for Elections. The monitoring was launched on June 15 and is due to end on November 15. The present project implies monitoring of evening news programs on 12 radio broadcasters. The monitored radio channels include Radio 1 (Georgian Public Broadcasting, GPB), Imedi, Fortuna, Radio Tavisufleba, Palitra, First Radio, Green Wave, Hereti, Dzveli Kalaki, Atinati, Maestro and Adjara.

Stories essentially relied on a single source and lacked verification with various sources. Similar to previous reporting period the news provided by radio broadcasters tended to be identical: topics in the stories were covered from the same angle and similar comments by respondents were offered.

Monitors point out that radio broadcasters essentially provided unbiased coverage of the monitored subjects. The stories tended to lack analysis and sources.

Compared with the previous reporting period the amount of coverage of presidential candidates there has been no significant escalation.

Unlike previous reporting period regional broadcasters did not differ much from the rest of radio broadcasters. In their case too stories were limited to citing policy makers’ statements and superficial reporting. The share of direct speech of subjects tended to go down (especially on radio Atinati and Dzveli Kalaki).

To view full version of media monitoring visit www.mediamonitor.ge. The file is also downloadable from Media.Ge.