Decision N131
April 19, 2017


Head of Council: Giorgi Mgeladze

Members of Council: Jaba Ananidze, Nino Jafiashvili, Maia Mamulashvili, Tazo Kupreishvili, Maia Metskhvarishvili

Applicant: Equality Movement

Respondent: Inga Grigolia

Description of the Complaint 

Equality Movement made an application to Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics Council where they said that in their opinion Talk Show Reaction which aired on 3rd of April, 2017 on TV Pirveli and was hoster by Inga Grigolia violated principle 7 of the Charter. The topic of the show was the rights of minorities, in particular, transgender people.

A representative of applicant attended the process. The respondent journalist did not attend the council and did not provide the response.

Findings of the Council

According to principle 7 of the Charter “Journalist must understand the dangers of supporting discrimination by media. Therefore, he or she should do everything to avoid discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, language, religion, political or other kinds of views, national or social status and any other reason”. Charter noted in many of the decisions about the principle 7 that it gives journalists a positive responsibility. Specifically, not only a journalist should not be a source of discriminatory phrases and discrimination in general, but he or she should do everything to avoid dissemination of discriminatory phrases by other sources too. Discriminatory ideas can be a part of journalistic material only in case of showing people how a certain public person is using this kind of language or when the process is in the live reporting. In these cases, a journalist should clearly state that discriminatory terms/attitudes are unacceptable for them and for the media.

In the show, guests used discriminatory, homophobic phrases about sexual minorities and offended them. For example, they were often called “Mamatmavali” (Sodomites), which as the Charter noted in the decision “Beka Gabadadze vs. Tea Adeishvili”, is considered to be offensive by sexual minorities. The use of this term is the same as homophobic bullying [verbal and physical]. The reason of offense was the clothes, intelligence of sexual minorities, etc. In no case, a journalist stated her opinion and mark the terms as homophobic and discriminatory. It is important to note that the choice of people as guests would have predicted discrimination, because most of them are known by their homophobic words and attitudes, therefore the host should have thought that they would have said the same things. In this case, it is of more importance for a journalist to state her opinion that the discrimination is not acceptable.

Guests had unrestricted opportunity to state their homophobic opinions and attitudes without any healthy opposition and evaluation. They used hate speech, derogatory terms [freaks, a not normal way of life, sodomites, sinful people, obscene people, lewd people, slaves, etc] to offend transgender people, humiliate and marginalize them, support hate and hostile attitude towards them. In this case, host has to take responsibility of who she invites as guests, whether they have full freedom to support conflict, hate and homophobic ideas while she does not take any notice or does not correct them, does not show the problem in real perspective and supports the maintenance of stereotypes and stigmas in the society.

Journalist herself mentioned that she wanted to show the reality. This argument does not justify the support of discrimination and homophobia. The problem can easily be discussed without offensive terms and discrimination and if they show up during the discussion, the host needs to restrict them. The journalist is obligated to work against existing irrational fears and disgust for sexual minorities in the society. For the principle 7 of the charter, it is not correct to use the journalistic stage to share discrimination and homophobia.

Resolution:

According to the information above:

Inga Grigolia violated principle 7 of the Charter.