N ieman Reports - Nieman Foundation - Harvard University

Shattering Barriers
Independence Buys Freedom But Also Fewer Viewers
‘Since we left Rustavi 2, Studio Monitor has had a hard time building a wide
audience. Getting our stories seen by people remains a major challenge.’
BY NINO ZURIASHVILI
In Georgia, when a media organization
exists, two things are likely to
be true about its owner. First, it
will be a business group or businessman,
and second, its owner will be
closely connected to those who hold
government power. Since
2004 these descriptions
fit perfectly the profile of
the founders and owners
of the controlling share
of 12 out of 13 of my
country’s TV channels.
I was working as an
investigative reporter at
Rustavi 2, one of Georgia’s
national TV channels,
when its ownership
changed in 2004. Kibar
Khalvashi, a businessman
and good friend of
Interior Minister Irakli
Okruashvili, bought the
channel that year. When
that happened, censorship
of our investigative
journalism began—four
of our projects were
blocked.
I left my job, as did
my co-worker Alex
Kvatashidze, an editor and videographer
with whom I collaborated
on investigative projects. Along with
several colleagues, we founded Studio
Monitor, a production company, as a
nongovernmental organization. Our
independent status means there is
no censorship of our stories—by us
or by anyone else—nor is there any
topic that we avoid covering out of
fear. There are, however, topics we
cannot investigate because we don’t
have access to the information that we
need to document the story. When a TV
station broadcasts our investigations,
we do not allow them to drop any part
of what we give them. Georgia’s major
TV channels—ones that are close to
Nino Zuriashvili, left, and editor and videographer Alex Kvatashidze,
Studio Monitor’s co-founders, have a difficult time finding outlets in
Georgia that will broadcast their reports. Photo by Karl Idsvoog.
the government—are not permitted
by the government to broadcast our
stories nor do those who work at these
channels attend presentations we do
about our investigations.
In 2009 the Caucasus Research
Resource Center conducted a media
survey in Georgia. It showed that 75
percent of people expressed a desire
to have an opportunity to watch
investigative stories on various topics.
We make our investigations available
on our website (www.monitori.ge), but
the larger challenge remains finding
media outlets to broadcast our stories.
Since 2007 a dozen of our investigative
stories have been shown at the
Tbilisi Cinema House, where we also
make presentations
about them. They are
also uploaded to other
online sites and some
regional TV channels
show them. 1
Our Investigative
Projects
There was one story we
did after we discovered
how the mayor of Tbilisi
had financed 15,000
workers during a fourmonth
period prior to
the May 2008 council
elections. It turns out
that he diverted $7.9
million of city funds to
pay for political activism.
Official records
showed that these funds
were to be spent to
check the list of people
who live below the poverty line, the
so-called socially vulnerable people,
even though this should have been the
responsibility of the national health
ministry.
We obtained official documents concerning
this program, and through our
sources we later found out who these
workers actually were—paid partisan
activists—and recorded interviews with
some of them. They explained how
they signed agreements while sitting
1
Studio Monitor’s stories have been broadcast periodically on regional channel TV 25 in
Batumi, Trialeti, Gori and Bolnisi.
28 Nieman Reports | Spring 2011