New TV Journalism in Georgia
Op-Ed
The United States President recently accused one of the most influential newspapers of the nation of a virtual act of treason, having stated that it is desperate for a story even if the story is bad for the country, describing the paper as the enemy of the people. Frankly, the statement could easily be tailored to some of the Georgian media that, on a regular basis, meanly circulate only the bad news in the country, digging out every gloomy piece of information and disseminating it with vicious vigor, using the frighteningly ominous tones in their journalists’ unnerving voices.
In a word, the air is literally thick in Georgia with slanderous reports and hearsay, often exclusively devised with the purpose of warping an average voter’s fragile mind. They do this with sporadic success but mostly aiming for a fiasco, desiring to put the discontented and brainwashed people back onto the streets of the country for recurring riots and revolution. So far, in vain!
There must be something wrong with a mass media which is so frantically concentrated on perpetuating a solely crippled image of the nation, the only reason for this kind of negative informational anxiousness being a political power takeover, ordered by the owners thereof. This kind of journalism doesn’t even smell of democracy, and this is exactly what America’s chief executive wanted to emphasize in his sensational statement. The good news though is that the sophistication of our local media is a nonstop social process which neutralizes the sharply deviated journalistic attitudes and straightens out the one-sided informational approach.
As a result of the current worldwide technological progress, which is drastically changing the style of action in media, the fight for fairness and objectivity in the realm of news is becoming fairer and easier to stick to. Georgia is catching up with this kind of media development, one of the best examples of which is the creation of a new powerful internet television two years ago under the name of PosTv which has so far enjoyed millions and millions of hits by its faithful truth-and-knowledge-hungry viewers. Up until now, it was based in the Facebook domain, where it will remain forever, but last Saturday, it also acquired a new individual internet site, www.postv.tv, an address which is soon to be firmly instilled in the nation’s memory.
Even a child knows that information is moving from our home television screens straight into our mobile phones, eternally sitting either in our pockets or on our palms. Actually, the greatest prerequisite for further development of PosTv is the worldwide palmtop frenzy, which has overwhelmed billions around the globe. It is nothing but a sharp sense of its creators for future public tastes and demands. It is an easy guess that this little electronic darling is gradually but very confidently taking over the news-oriented hearts and minds in the country and beyond, especially of the young.
In addition to its highly urbane technological basis, the genuine potential for development lies in its youthful journalistic team, which is ready to talk to people in a balanced tranquil tone, totally devoid of any panic and hysteria, putting a lot of sense into what they are saying about many different walks of our life. And life is not only about elections and occasional power takeovers. I have said this many times and I am ready to reiterate now that the quality of life that we are so hopeful to build depends much on our choice of preferences and their undelayed implementation. Those preferences are often confused, to my great chagrin, but we are learning fast. For instance, the young and powerful journalistic squad of PosTv is a group of strong and stylish specialists who know well and are giving a reasonable chance to those priorities, one of them being fairness and professionalism in terms of informing and edifying our current and upcoming generations. Speaking about life, the eternal fight between good and evil continues, and the fresh media players like PosTv are fearlessly throwing the gauntlet into the arena where those opposed powers so fiercely confront each other.
By Nugzar B. Ruhadze