Decision

November 3, 2018

Case N211

Salome Belkania vs. Nodar Meladze

Head of Council: Giorgi Mgeladze

Members of Council: Nino Jafiashvili, Lika Zakashvili, Tea Zibzibadze, Tamar Uchidze, Gela Mtivlishvili, Giorgi Suladze.

Applicant: Salome Belkania

Respondent: Nodar Meladze

Descriptive Part

Salome Belkania applied to Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics. She thought that the material aired in Rustavi 2 news show “Kurieri” at 12:00 PM, 5th of August, 2018 was violating Charter principle 10. Material was about the accident in Tkibuli mine, where several people died. The report showed emotional turmoil of one of the deceased people’s sister, her private emotions. Responding journalist was identified to be Nodar Meladze, head of news agency of Rustavi 2.

Applicant attended the hearing. Responding journalist did not attend the hearing or provide a response.

Motivational Part

According the the 10th principle of the Charter, a journalist should respect privacy of people and should not violate it unless there is a special public interest. Applicant thought that the material violated privacy of the relative, because it was dedicated to staging a show for ratings and not to showing the problem. She thought that instead of emotions of the person, the focus should have been made on labor rights and work safety.

Council shares the position of the applicant that the material showed personal tragedy and emotions of the relative. On the other hand, objective public interest needs to be evaluated, which would have been able to overcome the privacy violation accusation. Council focused on the following instances

• Importance of the event - The material was about a prominent problem of the country – increasing frequency of people dying on their jobs. This situation is worse in Tkibuli, where people working in mines die every year. Many journalists have covered this problem for years but the situation is not getting better. Therefore, there is a high public interest towards the topic.
• Place of recording - A person was showing her emotional state in the street, a public place, in front for tens of people, including media representatives. Therefore, this situation has lower standards of protection than actual private space.
• Participating people - Dimitri Kumsishvili, who was the minister of economics and steady development at that time, was at the recording place. Therefore, it was important to the society to know what his reactions and attitudes were towards this tragic fact.
• Requests of grieving person - Emotions and statements of the grieving person did not only describe her private feelings but also the attitudes of other people in similar situations and contained concerns and feelings towards government, including ex-Prime Minister, Bidzina Ivanishvili, who she blamed for inattentiveness. She thought that the government had blame in this tragedy. Therefore, it is important for media to show one person’s protest on the background of her tragedy, more so that one of the people she was blaming was at the site.
• Showing emotional state - Media is obligated to focus on general problem [work safety], but this does not negate the right to make certain problem visible and clear to the society by showing traumas and pains it causes. Showing the emotional state does not have to be the goal of the journalist and he should not violate privacy of people, but if the problem is made clear by showing personal tragedy, media does not have to refrain from using it just because it will be hard for the audience to watch the recording.

Based on everything, Council thinks that there was public interest to this topic. By showing clear and real emotions of a person, journalist was able to show tragic results of unsolved problem of work safety and make it obvious that the government does not have real answers to the accusations of a citizen.

Resolution Part:

According to everything stated above:

Nodar Meladze did not violate 10th principle of Charter.