Decision

September 30, 2017

Case N157


Head of Council: Giorgi Mgeladze

Member of Council: Tazo Kupreishvili, Tamar Uchidze, Jaba Ananidze, Geronti Kalichava, Maia Mamulashvili Applicant: NNLE N2 public school of Khobi

Respondent: Dito Chubinidze

Description part: 

NNLE Khobi N2 public school applied to the Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics. They thought, that the article “This happened in Khobi N2 school also known as the future school which was opened by Saakashvili” published in 32nd issue of the newspaper Asaval-Dasavali in 2017 and the same newspaper issue N33 article “Khobi N2 school LGBT video scandal continues” violated the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 7th and 8th principles of the Charter. The author of the article is a journalist Dito Chubinidze.

The material was about a video prepared by NNLE Khobi N2 public school students in which they supported equality within people no matter the gender, race, religion or sexual orientation. The main respondent about the video in both of the articles is Guram Palavandishvili.

The hearing was held in Khobi. Representative of the applicant attended the hearing. The respondent did not attend the hearing or provide any response. Minor students of Khobi N2 public school also attended the hearing and provided factual information to the Council. During the hearing the applicant withdrew the application about the 3rd and the 4th principle violations.

 Motivation Part 

According to the 1st principle of the Charter: “Journalist must respect truth and the audience’s right to receive precise information”. After research Council found out that the students of Khobi N2 School wrote the text and recorded video in which they supported equality by their own initiative. The initiator of the video or a supervisor was not a teacher and/or other person. Text was written by the students themselves. Students who participated in the video and attended the Council hearing attested that they support the idea of equality mentioned in the video and their parents knew about the preparation and publication of the video.

According to this information certain phrases in the article were not correct. For example the phrase: “LGBT teachers went to Khobi, took students out of class and made the video”. The journalist himself calls the video about equality an “LGBT video”, which is not true as well. Journalist did not try to recheck information with teachers or the director. In this case the violation of the first principle is aggravated because by misinterpreting facts the journalists supports hate towards sexual minorities and creates an impression that minors are under “bad influence” of certain people which is not true.

According to the 7th principle of the Charter: “Journalist should understand the danger of supporting discrimination; therefore he/she should use every possibility to avoid discriminating a person based on his/her race, gender, sexual orientation, language, religion, political or other views, national or social origin or any other reason”. The whole article is discriminatory. Journalist, as well as the respondents, use terms which are homophobic. Sexual minority group is called “LGBT herd”, “Pederast” and other derogatory terms. Journalist not only did not try to avoid respondent saying these things, but was himself a discrimination source. Both articles are underlined by strong disgust feeling towards sexual minorities. Based in this the Council thinks that the Charter principle 7 was violated.

Charter principle 8: “Journalist is obligated to protect child’s rights; child’s interests should be a priority while working; journalist should not prepare and publish articles and videos which are harmful towards children; journalist should not interview or videotape a child less than 16 years old about his/her or other minor’s welfare issues without the consent from parent or guardian”. Council thinks that the article is explicitly violating children’s rights and it’s interesting to note journalist’s attitude. Both of the articles contain photos of minors shown in the video and some of them have names and surnames provided. Journalist is fully identifying them. He also calls the video “disgusting” and takes children to the “moral” judgment bench.

As was mentioned in discussion of the violation of the 7th principle the main idea of the articles is to discriminate against sexual minorities and their supporters. Therefore, the photos included in the material were aimed at conjuring hate towards the people who support equality. Journalist published only photos of only 4 minors in the first article. In the second one, instead of realizing the mistake, he published all the children’s photos. Attending students told the Council that the identification caused them problems in society [relatives, neighbors] and they were criticized which had psychologically negative results. Council thinks that the 8th principle was greatly violated. Journalist not only did not protect child’s rights, he himself created every possible circumstance [identification of children and publishing photos of them in an incorrect, discriminatory article] for the rights’ violation and psychological-emotional trauma.

Resolution part: 

1. Dito Chubinidze violated Charter principles 1, 7, and 8.