Who Owned Georgia English.pdf

news to the Autonomous Republic of Ajaria, as well as to manyparts of the country. There are 26 other regional TV stations, butfor the most part, they are not original news providers.The Georgian government argued that independently ownedtelevision stations were free to broadcast what they want, butafter the Rose Revolution, the country’s two major televisionnetworks became owned and operated by former high-rankinggovernment officials or people close to the administration. 8 Thepotential for a conflict of interest threatened the developmentof Georgia’s media sector, as a free media is a foundation of ademocratic society. Ideally, the government should have beenpromoting this concept, but there were indications that it wasdoing otherwise.In 2003, the country held parliamentary elections whichwere an insult to the concept of democracy. Tens of thousandsof names were missing from voter lists - including wholeneighborhoods. Voters were coached, intimidated and beaten.Ballot boxes were openly stuffed as police officers stood by andwatched. People tuned into one channel on their TV sets andrealized these abuses weren’t isolated to their precincts but werehappening throughout the country. The nation was incensed.Mikheil Saakashvili, Zurab Zhvania and Nino Burjanadze wereable to exploit this rage and organize the masses to overthrow thegovernment by utilizing Rustavi 2 TV, the one television stationthat had been the voice of dissent long before the revolution waseven planned.Families used to gather around their televisions to watchRustavi 2’s Dardubala, an animated parody of Shevardnadzeand his government; 60 Minutes, which, based on the Americanprogram, investigated corruption; and Night Courier, a politicaltalk show. The format all changed after the Rose Revolutionwhen Rustavi 2 switched from being a government watchdog8 Media After Rose Revolution Studio Monitor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-vefDcvLZY Accessed on 05/12/20128