Rustavi2 and Imedi caught out telling lies: again

November 4, 2009 by georgiamedia

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In a clear sign of taking orders from a central authority, two of Georgia's state-directed national broadcasters last week chose the same day to report a story about Georgia's ranking in Transparency International's "Corruption Perception Index" (CPI).

The two stations - Rustavi2 and Imedi - chose the same day, 28 October, to broadcast stories about the CPI - but, in fact the index they were referring to was for 2008 and was published almost a year previously: this just was not a story on this day and so the only reasonable assumption is that the stations were ordered to broadcast this story on this day by the regime.

Moreover, Transparency International Georgia have now made it clear that the stories were inaccurate and even the most basic of journalistic tests shows that this was little more than propaganda, and poorly researched propaganda at that:

• Imedi claimed the CPI ranked Georgia ahead of Turkey - it did not. Turkey was ranked 58th most corruption (in perception) in the world, while Georgia was ranked 67th;
• Imedi claimed that the next report would see Georgia move three places further up the rankings. Transparency International say "This is incorrect. The 2009 CPI is not yet published and therefore the results are still unknown, even to TI-Georgia."
• Rustavi2 said that, in terms of progress, the CPI showed Turkey, the Czech Republic, Romania and South Korea were far behind Georgia. Transparency International say that it is "unclear how this conclusion was made" and suggest that the likely justification for the claim - the rate of improvement of score "would not be proper".
• Both stations made claims about Georgia's progress in comparison to the rest of the world which Transparency International say are only "partly true" and which, in any case, are not properly made comparisons - as countries with little or no corruption by definition have less room to improve.

What this whole story does show is that corruption in one sphere of Georgian life - of journalistic ethics and integrity - is alive and well.

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