Caucasus Election Blog Wins Plaudits

Local media across Georgia republished hundreds of items from a blog launched by IWPR to report on the May 30 local elections in Georgia, which won plaudits for its speedy, comprehensive coverage.

“If anyone wanted to keep track of the voting process, I can say this blog was the best tool they could use to do so,” political analyst Andro Barnov said.

During the three days geoelection.ge operated, 422 news, video and audio reports were posted on the blog and it received more than 16,000 hits. It was quoted in the media and used by journalists, politicians, political experts and agencies, including the Central Election Commission.

”I had geoelection.ge added to my facebook profile and I resorted to it frequently, as this resource was, unlike many others, regularly updated and diverse,” social media expert Giga Paichadze said.

“Several times I saw [the blog] publish an interview at least 40 minutes before ordinary media outlets came up with their own versions of it.”

Vaki Avaliani, spokesman for the opposition political movement Alliance for Georgia, said the blog was “a very interesting project” that should continue.

Several local media produced reports on the blog, and there were over 100 cases of information being reprinted.

“We, as well as news agency Interpressnews, have reprinted a lot of information from your blog,” said Irakli Managadze, director of news agency Expressnews. “Being the founder of a news agency myself, I perhaps should not be saying this, but you have beaten us all in terms of the speed with which you disseminated information.”

“Several times I saw [the blog] publish an interview at least 40 minutes before ordinary media outlets came up with their own versions of it.”
Giga Paichadze, social media expert

“There was a lot of exclusive information there,” said Salome Tsetskhladze of Rezonansi newspaper. “A more important thing is that it was highly objective.”

Six bloggers and nine IWPR journalists contributed to the project and the blog’s editors managed to ensure speedy dissemination of election-related news.

“Bloggers are more sophisticated technically, which is why they could file news more quickly than anyone else,” social media expert and one of the project coordinators Dodi Kharkheli said. “Some of the bloggers worked live, covering briefings and press conferences with a speed that no media outlet, not even news agencies, could rival.

The result of it was that many experienced and well-known news agencies reprinted news from our site.

“We covered the election with video, audio, text and photo materials, which was very effective both visually and from the viewpoint of credibility,” said blogger Nino Paniashvili.

Elsewhere, the authorities in a war-affected Georgian region launched a campaign to better inform local refugees about state assistance, following an IWPR radio show which outlined misunderstandings about official aid.

In the wake of the programme, Refugees’ News, which aired on May 9, and follow-up coverage by other media, information boards were set up in the five displacement camps in the Shida Kartli region. These will be regularly updated to inform refugees about government initiatives.

“Now that there are information boards here, I no longer have to wait for [officials] to visit and provide us with information,” said Meri Tetruashvili, from the Tsmindatskali refugee camp. “They (information boards) seem to be an insignificant detail, but they have really made life easier for so many people, including myself.”

"Together with IWPR, we will hold meetings in refugee settlements in the Gori municipality, where local government representatives will inform refugees about state programmes for them and answer any questions the refugees have,” said Natia Omadze, the spokesperson for the governor of Shida Kartli.

Natia Meladze, a refugee who worked on the programme, provided an example. “Before the programme was broadcast, refugees, including ourselves, had believed the state fully subsidised their utility costs, and then it turned out that in fact the state benefits only covered a part of their electricity bills,” she explained. This meant most of the refugees were faced with huge bills by the time the winter was over.

The Refugees’ News broadcast is part of IWPR’s refugee retraining and employment programme in the region, launched in July last year.

Participants receive training in basic journalism, conflict reporting and radio production.

“Meetings between officials and refugees will be conducted regularly to allow them to exchange information,” IWPR manager Maia Avaliani said, adding, “Every meeting will be covered with a special report for Refugees’ News, and after a while a follow-up meeting will be organised for the government officials to present the refugees with an account of what they have done to fulfill their promises.”

Giorgi Aptsiauri, coordinator of the IWPR retraining and employment programme in the region, explained how the idea came about.

“The state has provided quite a number of benefits for those affected by the Georgia-Russia war, but the refugees know little, if anything, about this,” he said.