MEDIA DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION MONITORING Hate Speech and Discrimination IN GEORGIAN MEDIA 15 APRIL-15 AUGUST, 2013 ABOUT PROJECT The Media Development Foundation (MDF) implements a project Monitoring Hate Speech and Discrimina- tion in Georgian Media within the framework of program, Project Advancing National Integration in Georgia, carried out by the United Nations Association of Georgia (UNAG) and the Open Society Georgia Foundation (OSGF) with the financial assistance of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The project is aimed at encouraging professionnal coverage of minorities in Georgian media through public discussions of problems identified during the monitoring. Before releasing the final report and recommendations envisaged by the project, the MDF was providing me- dia outlets, civil society and other interested parties with weekly electronic bulletins of monitoring results. The project involves the monitoring of six newspapers (Asaval-Dasavali, Rezonansi, 24 Saati, Chronika, Alia, Kviris Palitra), evening news programs and talk shows of six TV channels (Georgian Public Broad- caster, or GPB, Imedi, Rustavi 2, Kavkasia, Maestro and Channel 9), as well as an evening talk show of Media Union Obiektivi. The project also envisages monitoring of reaction of non-governmental organizations and other institu- tions to intolerance and hate speech in the public domain, as well as their responses on particular dis- crimination cases. The report covers key findings of monitoring for the time span from April 15 to August 15. REGULATIONS An overall document on professional standards which would be treated as a guiding manual by all types of media – print and electronic, does not exist in Georgia at present. Nor has the tradition of considering complaints been developed in the country, which took decades all traditional democracies to form. For broadcast media, the Code of Conduct for Broadcasters was drawn up, which, among other issues, regulate the coverage of minorities as well. The Georgian Public Broadcaster (GPB) has its own in-house Code of Conduct, whilst members of the Charter of Journalistic Ethics must abide to provisions of the Charter of Journalistic Ethics (see, Appendix No 1) It must be noted that both the Code of Conduct for Broadcasters and that of the GPB include detailed regulations regarding the coverage of minorities, which reflect the experience of the democratic media. Therefore, it is desirable that they are applied as a professional and civil principle not only by electronic media representatives but those of print and online media too. METHODOLOGY The methodology is based on separate indicators of the Media Diversity Institute (MDI), Code of Conduct for Broadcasters and international standards, concerning the unacceptability of discrimination and hate 5 speech on ethnic, religious, sexual orientation, gender or any other grounds; observation of principles of accuracy and impartiality. The study was conducted using both quantitative and qualitative analysis. A distinguished approach was applied towards TV news bulletins and reports and print articles. In this case, those materials which essentially violated the principle of accuracy or facts and context were not fully reported; also in which discrimination on the part of journalists was observed or in case of discrimination on the part of respon- dents, journalists failed to react to it, i.e. did not follow the relevant professional standard were assessed as negative coverage. In contrast, those materials which were essentially accurate in terms of factual data and anti-discriminatory standards were observed; as well as materials reporting ethnic or religious holidays of minorities, problems of minorities, were evaluated as a positive coverage. The neutral cover- age included those materials which more or less fully provide the essence of an issue, journalists are not sources of discrimination themselves and they only cover public attitudes. In case of interviews published in print media as well as TV talk shows, instances of discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender and hate speech were identified and typology of violations were defined. It was also observed how journalists react to expressions of such discrimination and hate speech – whether they express such a position or challenge the respondents. The study separated unsubstantiated parallels often drawn by journalists or respondents with the minori- ties, thereby facilitating the spread of incorrect facts and various speculations about minorities. The aim of the study also was to detect sources of hate speech and discrimination on various grounds – the media itself or respondents. Consequently, the report separated such expressions made by the media from those of respondents and classified respondents by groups. 6 CONTENT 1. TV NEWS PROGRAMS 9 1.1. Ethnic minorities 12 1.2. Religious minorities 13 1.3. Sexual minorities 17 1.4. Gender issues 21 2. TV TALK-SHOWS 23 2.1. Ethnic minorities 26 2.2. Religious minorities 29 2.3. Sexual minorities 30 2.4. Sexism, discrimination on gender ground 35 3. PRINT MEDIA 37 3.1. Ethnic minorities 40 3.2. Religious minorities 43 3.3. Sexual Minorities 47 3.4. Discrimination on gender ground 55 4. RESPONDENTS 57 4.1. Ethnic minorities 60 4.2. Religious minorities 66 4.3. Sexual minorities 70 4.4. Sexism, discrimination on gender ground 88 5. HATE SPEECH 89 5.1. Journalists 90 5.2. Politicians 93 5.3. Representatives of society 93 6. UNJUSTIFIED PARALLELS 99 6.1. Ethnic and religious minorities 101 6.2. Sexual minorities 102 7. CIVIL SECTOR 105 8. RECOMMENDATIONS 109 9. APPENDIX 113 Appendix 1. Professional Standards 115 Appendix 2. Definition of terminology 122 1. TV News Programs 9 10 In the reporting period, 194 reports of the news programs under monitoring were analyzed. Of these 67 reports were examples of positive coverage, 105 – of neutral coverage and the remaining 22 of negative coverage. PRIME-TIME TV NEWS BULLETINS 22 67 105 POSITIVE NEUTRAL NEGATIVE By topics, the data has been distributed in the following way: 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 ETHNIC RELIGIOUS SEXUAL GENDER POSITIVE NEUTRAL NEGATIVE The highest number of reports on minority topics was produced by the prime time news program of the GPB, Moambe. By the production of reports on independent topics, the GPB and TV company Maestro were in the lead. 11 1.1. ETHNIC MINORITIES Property Disputes The ethnic discrimination in TV news and current affairs programs has been mostly coupled with the issues related to social problems concerning the land property rights. It is worth noting that these topics were covered in light of dissatisfaction of local population with foreign land owners and the government and lacked proper balance in terms of providing foreign investors’ positions or the position of a relevant state entity (Ministry of Economy). Such incidents require comprehensive journalistic investigation, which was not carried out by any of media outlets to shed more light on the issue, during the monitoring period. Conflict of the population of the Artsevi village in the region of Gori with the Indian investors has been covered in a considerably balanced manner by TV Imedi (Qronika, April 26)1. Although the report does not reflect comprehensive picture, it presents position of all sides including the foreign investor, the positive message of the Prime Minister and underlines that the representatives of the Ministry of Economy declined to provide the on-camera comment. Rustavi 2 (June 22)2 violated Article 31 of the Code of Conduct for Broadcasters when it used a quote of one of the respondent3 in the report about land ownership, containing hate speech. The media outlet could have refrained from using that comments it did not represent a necessity for describing the essence of the social problem covered in the report. The report itself incorrectly conveys the essence of the problem and contains factual inaccuracies. The journalist cites other examples of similar conflict and in the case of Samtaskaro says that this village “is the last Georgian settlement at the border with Azerbaijan,” thereby dramatizing the situation. In spite of containing the positions of different sides, the stories of the weekly program Post Scriptum, Rustavi 2 (April 28)4 are blended with the xenophobic, discriminatory expressions of the local residents towards the foreigners5, and contain groundless comparisons6 as well. The report of Imedi TV (June 22)7 on the same subject – property dispute in the village of Karaleti – provides neutral comments of respondents, in which the emphasis is placed on social issues and not on the origin of the investor. The report of Maestro TV news program (19 April)8 on a conflict between locals and a foreign investor in the Kvemo Artsevi village was one sided, covered from the perspective of locals alone. It contained four comments of which two were made by local residents, one by local governor and the remaining one by a machine operator hired by the investor to perform works. A position of the Indian investor was not represented at all in the report. The journalists did not even note whether she undertake any attempt to contact the investor and why his position was not represented in the report. Nor had the journalist double checked the factual data with official agencies (Public Registry) to find out what size of land 1 http://www.myvideo.ge/?video_id=2021782 2 http://www.myvideo.ge/?video_id=2079309 3 Anzor Chukhrukidze, a resident of the Shindisi village: “In the past, those Muslims waged war against us, invading and killing Georgians with swords. Who are they now? Do they not have seniors or juniors, or do we not have the government? On which government should one hope for getting rid of those Muslims?” 4 http://www.myvideo.ge/?video_id=2022953 5 Giorgi Mdzinarishvili, resident of the village of Ditsi: “Tatars, those infidels were here. They captured our lands.” Resident of Ditsi village (no title): “Georgians died in Tskhinvali for these lands.