Yesterday, on November 23, a meeting of the Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics was held to discuss the case “Sapari against Nato Gogelia”. According to the decision of the Charter Council, the 8th principle of the Charter of Journalism was violated in the case (“A journalist is obliged to protect the rights of the child; during professional activities should give priority to the interests of the child, should not prepare and publish the articles and stories about children that will be harmful to them. A journalist must not interview or photograph an adolescent under the age of 16 without the consent of a parent or guardian on matters relating to his or her or any other adolescent’s well-being”).

On June 7 of current year, in the news of TV Pirveli at 20:00 – “The first ones (Pirvelebi) at 8”, a story was aired with the following title – “About sexual abuse of a grandchild in prison.” The author of the story is Nato Gogelia, a journalist of TV Pirveli. This story is about a child under 10 years of age, who is being defended by Union Sapari.

In the story, journalist Nato Gegelia reports that she talked to the neighbors and relatives about the violence against the child. In the story there is a blurred shot of a woman next door and her voice is heard, saying: “I have not heard any voice and I have not heard such thing and I do not know what is happening at home”, which confirms that the journalist informed the neighbor about the forms of child abuse and it becomes clear from the story that nothing was known to the respondent before.

This fact revealed the identity of the child victim of pedophilia and information about the crime to a neighbor. In addition, in the story, a journalist’s question is heard to a police officer, with the following text: “Yes, but the police have arrested …..s” (name of the district can be heard). With this remark, the journalist also articulated the child’s residential area.

It should be noted that sharing such a detail significantly increases the risk of identifying a child. It is also noteworthy that although the story showed blurred shots of the settlement, they were sharp enough so that the visuals of these houses and neighborhoods were recognizable to the people living there.

In addition, on June 7, the lawyer of Sapari, Tamar Lukava, was contacted by the child’s mother several times and informed that a TV pirveli shooting crew was outside her house, which severely affected the emotional state of the child and the parent.

After Sapari learned about the risks of possible disclosure of the child’s identity, it preventively tried to avoid publicizing the stories similar to pedophilia story with such violations.

For this purpose, on June 7, after it became known to the representatives of the Sapari (Director – Baia Pataraia, Lawyer – Tamar Lukava, Public Relations Manager – Shorena Gabunia) that the TV Pirveli shooting crew was near the child’s house, before the airing of an eight o’ clock program of Tv Pirveli,“the Firsts (Pirveliebi) at 8”, the staff of Union Sapari applied a number of measures. In particular, three public posts on the issue were published on the Facebook page of director Baia Pataraia.

After receiving information from the mother of an alleged pedophilia victim that she had been approached by TV Pirveli reporters for comment, Shorena Gabunia, the public relations manager of Sapari, called the journalist of Tv Pirveli working on the story and told her that bursting into the family of the victim with cameras is a gross violation of the victim’s interests. The journalist replied that it was not her and it was probably done by some journalist working in the region, and promised Shorena Gabunia that she would pass on the PR manager’s message to the producer.

The above story violates the 8th principle of the Charter of Ethics, as well as international media standards and is also a violation of the principle of the best interests of the child.

In this case, in the program “The First ones (Pirvelebi) at 8” the journalists and the producer did not take into account the best interests of the child – not to disclose the factual circumstances of the criminal case to third parties. The journalist on the program “Pirvelebi at 8” provided information to third parties about the article of the Criminal Code, by which the child was recognized as a victim, it was also not taken into account that it is in the best interest of the child not to disclose their place of residence, including the name of the district where the child lives, also the visual side of this very house and its neighborhood should not be divulged

You can see the recording of the program at the following link .

The motivational part of the decision will be published later.