Caucasus: Building Capacity

Throughout July and August, the journalists visited 12 villages outside South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and met more than 50 officials and aid workers, as well as refugees. “When we were entering the war-damaged villages, dozens of people came to meet us. They told us stories that have not been covered in the press. I am very grateful to IWPR that we had an opportunity to go into the conflict zones,” said Anna Tutberidze, a journalist from the Interpressnews agency.

The group even managed to reach areas previously inaccessible to journalists, such as Perevi, a Georgian village controlled by Russian and Ossetian forces since the 2008 war.

“The IWPR mission has given me a chance not only to approach the village’s borders, but also to enter it and talk to the people who live there,” Tutberidze continued. “I guess I am lucky to have been able to do so, since precious few possess a real picture of the situation in the territories lost as a result of the war.”

Another Georgian project, which ended this summer, both succeeded in boosting regional journalists’ newsgathering ability and also left behind a durable network of media professionals.

The Georgia Regional Media Network project started with 16 print and radio journalists and grew to include some 180 active participants over its two years of operation.

The output of the project included a radio programme, Accent, a website, a photojournalism site and a blog. The network held seven round-table discussions involving over 200 people, and more discussions took place as part of the training workshops and exchange visits.

“The regional journalists have made considerable changes in their professional growth. I was actively involved in the process and think this project was a perfect example of how a network should work,” said Yuri Storojuk, project trainer and consultant from Ukraine.

"I thought I would have difficulty communicating with the Azeri journalists, but now I see people in them, not the enemy. Also, thanks to the seminar, I now know how careful I should be when reporting a conflict."
Gayane Avahian, Armenian journalist

“Project coordinators managed to form a good team of young and motivated journalists, and the technical and thematic output was of high quality.”

The project covered eight regions of Georgia, included reporters from the disputed areas of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Programmes were able to straddle the conflict line, in a way impossible for most Georgian media. Abkhazian journalists regularly wrote articles for the project’s website and prepared their own radio reports. For two years, these materials were Georgia’s only really objective source of information about Abkhazia.

During the project, the journalists studied their countries’ ethnic and religious minorities, visiting the regions where they are concentrated, and learning about their fellow citizens.

“I am ashamed to say that before I joined the project I had looked down on all non-Georgians and viewed them as enemies,” said Nino Chabashvili from Kakheti region.

“Now I know that they are people just like us, with hopes, fears and joys just like ours. And I know what I can do for them – write frequently about their problems to show the reader how wrong it is to think about them the way I used to do.”

As the project period coincided with several critical events in Georgia, including mass protests, two elections and the 2008 war, it provided an important source of unbiased and accurate information. During the war, a blog launched by IWPR’s Georgian office was the top Russian-language blog, according to World Press ratings.

IWPR worked to bridge more divisions through a workshop for young journalists from Armenia and Azerbaijan, held on August 20-22, which covered both conflict reporting techniques and ways to overcome personal prejudices.

Over the course of the seminar, part of IWPR’s Neighbours programme, the journalists visited Georgia’s war-damaged region of Shida Kartli, received a lecture on conflict resolution, and studied conflict reporting. They conducted practical exercises and wrote articles.

“When I first heard that the seminar would be about conflicts, I thought that would be more than I could cope with,” said Armenian journalist Gayane Avahian. “Happily, our trainer was a psychologist, and she explained in detail to us what a conflict was.”

 “On my way here, I thought I would have difficulty communicating with the Azeri journalists, but now I see people in them, not the enemy. Also, thanks to the seminar, I now know how careful I should be when reporting a conflict.”

They visited the Berbuki refugee settlement, met officials from the Gori district administration, and spent time in the villages of Karaleti and Ergneti on the administrative border between Georgia and South Ossetia.

It resulted in the production of some dozen television and radio reports, as well as articles in newspapers in both Azerbaijan and Armenia. And young journalists from both sides studied and socialised together.

“One of the most tragic things that has happened in the 15-year stalemate over Karabakh is that Armenians and Azerbaijanis no longer interact so that each side dehumanises the other,” said Leah Kohlenberg, Media Trainer at IREX, which helped IWPR to publish supplements in Armenia.

“It's not just about politics: there is much in common culturally and socially for the two countries and this is being lost as both sides become more deeply entrenched in their positions. That's why these supplements are so important.”