Decision on Case N169
November 2, 2017

Head of Council: Giorgi Mgeladze

Member of Council: Jaba Ananidze, Nino Jafiashvili, Geronti Kalichava, Tazo Kupreishvili, Maia Metskhvarishvili

Applicant: Giorgi Mgaloblishvili

Respondent: Giorgi Chomakhashvili

Description part: 

Giorgi Mgaloblishvili applied to Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics. He thought that Rustavi Information portal – INFORUSTVI – violated the 4th and 11th (Plagiarism) principles of the Charter. According to the applicant the media company used the video which was shot by the video camera outside of the Kvemo Kartli TV-Radio company building without mentioning the source. Respondent was declared to be Giorgi Chomakhashvili. Applicant attended the hearing. Respondent did not attend the hearing but provided a written response.

Following facts were unraveled while investigating the case:

1) Video camera that is owned by Kvemo Kartli TV-Radio Company shot a car accident in Rustavi. The video of this was published on the company’s own Facebook page.

2) The video was used by Rustavi Information Portal – INFORUSTAVI.

They specifically:

1) Published a piece on their YouTube channel about an accident where they used the video which was shot by the video camera outside of the Kvemo Kartli TV-Radio company building without mentioning the source.

2) Prepared an article in which they mentioned the source media company.

Motivation Part 

According to the 4th principle of the Charter: “Journalist should use only fair and just methods while acquiring photos or documents”. Charter Council thinks that 4th principle was not violated in this case. Applicant mentioned that they publicized their video themselves. Therefore, it is justified that everyone could have used them.

The Council recommends that if a video of someone else is used in a journalistic product on own webpage it should be embedded with a code. Downloading someone else’s video and uploading it on your own social network channel or webpage should be unjustified act. By doing this a media company is taking away views from the original company which affects its ratings and income. If the original uploaded video cannot be embedded with a code than an ethical media company should provide a link to the original video page. Uploading a video should be preceded with asking an author for the permit and then should be accompanied by the author’s name and the original source.

According to the 11th principle of the Charter: “journalist must consider the following as a grave professional crime: plagiarism”. While discussing the violation of the 4th principle the Council thought, that respondent had a right to use video of other company but had an ethical obligation to mention the original source. As was mentioned in the descriptive part the source of the video was mentioned in the published article, therefore there cannot be a case of plagiarism. As of the YouTube video, there was no mention of the original source and the audience was left with the impression that the video was recorded by INFORUSTAVI themselves.

Council also thought it appropriate to discuss the following text accompanying the video in question: “For more information, visit the webpage http://inforustavi.ge/”. Considering that inforustavi.ge had the article mentioning the source, that could have been the fulfillment of the ethical obligation of not plagiarizing someone else’s work. Council thinks that just the mention of the link http://inforustavi.ge was not enough in this case because if the INFORUSTAVI YouTube channel subscriber [1900 subscribers in total] watched the video and then clicked the link, they would have gone not to the particular article with the source but the homepage of the company. The audience member would not have thought to check specific article and see what the source of the video was. After watching the video on YouTube and even after clicking the link, it was not logically consequential that the person would have found the source of the video. Therefore, the Council thinks that in this case the 11th principle of the Charter, the plagiarism, was violated.

Note: After the hearing respondent edited the video and removed the video material. Charter welcomes this behavior as a response to the obligation being made aware of.

Resolution part: 

Based on the information above:

1. Giorgi Chomakhashvili violated the 11th principle of the Charter in the plagiarism part.

2. Giorgi Chomakhashvili did not violate the 4th principle of the Charter.