Misleading TV report about a “Rioni Valley Defenders” activist is removed

On April 13 of this year, the media outlet POSTV in its news edition, in connection with the ongoing protest against Namakhvani HPP, mentioned the name of one of the activists of the Rioni Valley Defenders instead of the name of another person. It was reported that he, along with his companions, was creating chaos for political interests with the goal to create destruction and unrest. According to the TV story, they physically confronted the protesters. The details of the incident are being investigated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The activist in question considered that the media outlet was trying to discredit him as an activist of the "Rioni Valley Defenders". The report was broadcast live and viewed by more than 50,000 people on the social network.

With the help of GYLA, the Rioni Valley Defender filed with the Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics and requested to investigate a violation of professional standards by the media, in particular, an alleged breach of the first, third, fifth, seventh, and eleventh principles of the Charter of Journalistic Ethics.

On June 10, 2021, a mediation session was held concerning the case. POSTV expressed its readiness to rectify the information and to finalize the case through mediation. As a result, the report containing incorrect information was removed from social networks;

On June 07, 2021, in the 19:00 news release of POSTV [19:57], the TV company announced as follows: On April 13, 2021, while reporting news at 19:00 about the Namakhvani HPP, one of the individuals shown in the photo was mistakenly identified as “Eldar Antadze,” while actually the photo showed Giga Kotrikadze. We apologize to Giga Kotrikadze for the technical error.”

Accordingly, the mediation between the parties was reached based on Giga Kotrikadze's statement taking into account the aforementioned circumstances.


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