Who creates the news?

Media is incapable of covering the issues topical for voters. It is politicians who determine the agenda for the public in the pre-election period.
The pre-election news stories that make it onto major news programs of Georgian TV channels are about the activities of political parties and candidates. "Information subsidy" that the candidates give to media is often focused on such events as door-to-door rounds and meetings with voters, marches on main avenues, press conferences, etc.

Bombarded with such activities on behalf of politicians media is unable to decide itself what are the most important topics to cover. It easily falls under the influence of this or that politician. Representatives of political parties standing in front of their party logos and never-ending cycle of "talking heads" are a standard shot of the pre-election news.

Nika Ivanishvili demands the resignation of the government;

Gia Chanturia and Inga Grigolia laid flowers at the Monument of Deda Ena;

Zviad Dzidziguri and Koba Davitashvili marched along the Rustaveli Avenue and voiced their protest against English inscription of shops;

Irakli Alasania met with the university students;

Noghaideli says that Saakashvili and Merabishvili will rig elections by intimidating people;

The Labor Party argues that the anti-national government will soon declare English a state language...

This is what the pre-election news editions cover instead of focusing on the election process itself and other election-related issues, which are of far more importance for the voting public.

For example, one of such issues is election campaign funding, which the candidates have been avoiding so far and media has forgotten about. Although "Imedi TV" keeps accusing Zurab Noghaideli of receiving the "Russian money" but backing its claim with reminding the public about the visits of Noghaideli to Moscow is not enough.

Although rarely, some important topics that influence voter behavior still make onto the TV screens. Such an exception was a report of "Maestro" about the billboards of Tbilisi and about how much it costs Nika Ivanishvili, Giorgi Chanturia and Davit Iakobidze to have their election posters on them. According to the author of this report, the price of each of them is 600 USD, which will cost individual parties 10 to 12 thousand USD. The report did not clearly identify the sources of funding because of the vague answers of the candidates.

Another report shown in "Kronika" (news edition of the Imedi TV) titled "Pre-election Creative" was dedicated to the election slogans and advertisements. However, the report put emphasis on the contents of the slogans only. It started with a critical review of Irakli Alasania's video ad. According to the author of the report, the ad, which appeared in Facebook was disliked by the majority of viewers. The slogan and music in the ad were accused of plagiarism. It was said that the "authors" of Alasania's key election message ("We will change") were Christian-Democrats. The report also said that Gia Chanturia, the candidate from the rightist-centrist Christian-Democratic Party, had leftist promises.

Even "Kurieri" (the news edition of the Rustavi 2 TV) devoted a report to the promises of the mayor candidates. The report mentioned that the election programs of opposition candidates were built around social issues, employment and healthcare and were thus similar. However, the report featured different opposition candidates criticizing each other and there was no expert opinion asked on different promises made in the election campaigns.

Very unusual and uncharacteristic was a report about single majority candidates in the regions shown by "Moambe" (news edition of the Georgian Public Broadcasting channel). The representatives of opposition parties in Imereti, Samegrelo, Kvemo Kartli and Kakheti spoke about the same problems: deficiencies of electoral lists, pressure on their candidates, use of administrative resources by the government candidates. This is the list of core issues that media should be actively covering in the pre-election campaign.

Broadcasters do not forget to apply the used method of information gathering: they obtain topics for their reports from other media means. In the short period since the start of the pre-election campaign the broadcasters have gotten the following three topics from the press. Two were from Russian newspapers. Kakhi Kaladze's possible joining of Noghaideli's party was taken from the interview published in "Sovetski Sport" and the report about Irakli Alasania's chances of becoming the president was borrowed from Vano Merabishvili's interview to "Komersant". The third report about the possibility of Levan Gachechiladze becoming the candidate for mayor's post from Irakli Okruashvili's Party was based on the information agency "Pirveli".

At the time when no report has been devoted to the issues of election campaign funding, planning or administrative resource usage, the news edition of "Kurieri" shows how the new flower clock is being installed on the Europe Square. According to the report, the green clock will have the richest color palette in May and this clock will count the first working hours of the new mayor.

"Liberali", April, 2010