TBILISI, October 2 – Georgia’s Communications Commission has fined Formula TV 10,000 lari after finding that its news programs violated legal requirements on fairness and impartiality, Interpressnews reported.
The regulator said it monitored Formula’s 5 p.m. news broadcasts from September 14 to 16 and found cases where presenters and correspondents expressed personal opinions while covering political and public affairs.
According to the commission, Georgian broadcasting law bars news and public-affairs programs from covering political disputes or current public-policy issues on the basis of a broadcaster’s personal attitude or opinion.
The regulator said Formula had already been sanctioned three times over similar violations during the previous year, first with a written warning and later with fines of 2,500 and 5,000 lari. Because of the repeat violations, the broadcaster was this time fined 10,000 lari.
MediaChecker, a Georgian media-monitoring platform, said the latest penalty was imposed under Article 54 of the broadcasting law, which deals with fairness and impartiality. It said the regulator had selectively monitored Formula’s news programs broadcast between September 14 and 16.
Among the wording cited by the regulator were repeated phrases such as “Georgian Dream’s prime minister”, “Georgian Dream’s State Security Service”, “Georgian Dream’s parliament”, “Ivanishvili’s prime minister”, “Georgian Dream’s Finance Ministry” and “Georgian Dream’s president”.
According to the regulator’s reasoning, the use of such phrases amounted to the broadcaster expressing its own opinion and attitude toward state institutions.
