EU and UNDP assess media coverage of Georgia’s parliamentary elections
By Tea Mariamidze
Wednesday, November 16
The European Union (EU) and United Nations Development Program (UNDP) positively assessed the media coverage of Georgia’s parliamentary elections on Tuesday. However, they noted that some fields need to be improved.
The EU and UNDP released their report about media coverage of October 2016 Parliamentary Elections in Georgia. The report includes the period from September 26 till November 2.
The TV news and TV Talk show monitoring was implemented by the Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics, which monitored TV news broadcasts and talk shows within the framework of the EU and UNDP project entitled “A Study of the Media Coverage of the 2016 Parliamentary Elections”.
Radio monitoring was carried out by Internews-Georgia which monitored evening news of 12 radio broadcasters.
As for the monitoring of print and online media, the Civic Development Institute (CDI) implemented the monitoring of 7 print media outlets and 17 online publications.
“This year’s elections were mainly positively assessed by the EU. As for the media coverage, this part was entirely assessed positively. However, there are some fields that need to be improved,” Deputy Head of the EU mission to Georgia Carlo Natale stated at the presentation of the report.
UNDP Deputy Head to Georgia Shombi Sharp also noted that the parliamentary elections were held in a trustful and professional environment, and said the role of the media was very important in such results.
“General results of media monitoring are positive but we have to note that some fields need improvement, especially Print and Online media outlets. We should continue working actively towards the development of the media, in order to get rid of hate speech and get more balanced coverage,” Shombi Sharp said.
The overall objective of the project is to contribute to transparent, objective and balanced media environment during the Parliamentary and Presidential elections through support of the media monitoring campaign.
The EU and UNDP support the efforts of the civil society in Georgia to perform a quantitative and qualitative monitoring of Georgian TV, Radio, Print and Online media outlets. Specific methodology and criteria are established to analyze news, political and elections related talk shows.
The EU/UNDP media monitoring list included more than 40 broadcasters from TV, radio, print and online media outlets.
