Russian-Georgian Journalist School: provocation or dialogue?

LJ of Natalia Sakhno, a Ukrainian working in Tbilisi as a freelance journalist and a correspondent of the Russian-speaking Ukrainian and Georgian mass media

On February 4th the joint Russian-Georgian Journalist School began its operation in Tbilisi. It is organized by the political scientific center “North-South” (Russia), the non-profit partnership “Caucasian Cooperation” (Russia), the Journalist Department of the MSIIR (Russia), and the information and analysis agency Vestnik Kavkaza.

Everything would be alright but for a scandal in the first day of the international humanitarian and educational initiative’s work. Georgian journalists who decided to attend workshops of their Russian colleagues were met at the entrance to Ambassador Hotel by a group of activists headed by the well-known Tajik-Russian-Georgian journalist Oleg Panfilov. I cannot say there were many protested people (no more than 15), but my attention was captured by mottos on handmade banners: “Workshops of Lie”, “FSB recruiting point” and so on. In interview to one of Georgian TV-channels Mr. Panfilov stated that in recent time no less than 50 journalists died in Russia. According to Panfilov’s logic, those who survived have no right to share their experience with Georgian colleagues.

Such beginning gave a scandalous shade to the event. No more than 20 people gathered in the conference-hall of the hotel. My first impression about the school is ambiguous. On the one hand, arrival of journalists from Russia to Georgia caused significant resonance in the society. On the other hand, Georgian professional journalists ignore the opportunity to communicate with their colleagues, share experience and learn something for free. An interesting moment was that not all my colleagues got an invitation from the organization committee after we had sent applications because of absence of free places in a group.

Probably the problem was Georgian unpunctuality. 40 minutes later there were no free seats in the hall. Initiators of the Russian-Georgian Journalist School, a five-day program, told us about goals of the event.

According to the deputy Director General of the political scientific center “North-South” Yulia Yakusheva, the main goal of such meetings with journalists is improvement of their professional level, establishment of humanitarian contacts between Russian and Georgian mass media, and presentation of new media technologies to Georgian journalists.

“Similar schools have already been held in Baku and Yerevan successfully. Moreover, by the end of the year we plan to organize a meeting of the most promising young journalists of the South Caucasus in Sochi. Our political center is open for cooperation. We offer on-the-job training in the information agencies of RIA Novosti and Vestnik Kavkaza,” Yakusheva said.

They showed us video-greetings from the dean of the Journalist Department of the MSIIR Yaroslav Skvortsov and the Executive Director of the political scientific center “North-South” Alexei Vlasov who couldn’t take part in the international journalist round table in Tbilisi.

Yaroslav Skvortsov noted that often journalists add oil to the flame and worsen complicated relations between Russia and Georgia. He urged his Georgian colleagues to build bridges, not walls. Alexei Vlasov stated that in the current media sphere of the post-Soviet space deficit of communication between professionals is obvious. The main goal of such round tables is an attempt to establish a productive dialogue.

The head of the non-profit partnership Nikolai Silayev and the political scientist Sergey Mikheyev also spoke on the first working say of the school. Suddenly a new shade of the scandal was added to the event. A journalist lady asked for a chance to pose some questions to initiators of the forum. However, when she got a microphone without presenting herself instead of questions she covered guests and the initiators with insulting statements on the fact that the level of Russian civil society development is much lower than in Georgia. It means that “… only due to heavy hangover Russian journalists decided to come to Georgia to teach us how to work in the mass media. And what an idiot wanted to tell Georgian journalists in the 21st century how to work with periodicals!” (I cannot say that the quotation is absolutely precise, but the essence is that). Without getting a response the lady-provocateur proudly headed toward the exit, but she failed to think over all details. As she was one of the first who came to the meeting, her coat was buried under coats of other people, and she needed time to get it. Her dialogue with Sergey Mikheyev resembled a clash at a market, rather than a talk between two professionals. The anonymous provocateur didn’t want to call her name, she only shouted as loud as she could.

Mikheyev’s reaction was rather cool. “We expected that people will meet us excitedly. Georgian journalism is marked by high emotionality. I believe those guys who shout upstairs (Panfilov and his team) will soon get tired of this and won’t prevent our productive dialogue. We are not afraid of provocations! We have already seen it. However, it was long ago. Such provocations took place in Western Ukraine, in Lvov. We shouldn’t mix up politicians and political scientists. We are your colleagues and we want an adequate cooperation between our countries,” Mikheyev commented on the incident.

The expected scandal was crushed in the bud. The work of the Journalist school continued. Georgian journalists listened to a lecture of the editor-in-chief of “Russia in Global Politics” Magazine Fyodor Lukyanov: “Why is the Russian media interested in foreign policy?”

Then, there was an emotional discussion of the lecture. Journalists of the Russian-speaking TV channel “PIK” which was closed in December were especially active. The dialogue was lively and interesting.

Watching people sitting in the hall, I realized that the majority of my colleagues came to the school not for getting new knowledge on their profession, but for witnessing a scandal and participating in a provocation and, thus, improving estrangement between Georgia and Russia by exaggeration of hatred.

My idea was confirmed by a half-empty hall after a break. Those journalists who came to add oil to the flames left and didn’t listen to a very interesting report by designer, branding and visual communication expert, tutor of the Higher School of Economics Pavel Redkin – “Visual Technologies in Modern Mass Media.” It was very informative, useful, and… absolutely apolitical.