Espionage and journalistic excellence in Georgia
Inside Source is our regular audio journal on the events and people making the news in the Sourcefabric community. Douglas Arellanes was recently in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, and while he was there he caught up with Eka Chitanava, a journalist working with Liberali - one of the country's few independent news beacons in a difficult recent media climate.
After November 2007, following the abrupt closure of the government-critical station TV Imedi, relations between the media and the Georgian government were said to have suffered dramatically. Conflict with Russia in August 2008 further complicated matters and in 2009 media freedom became one of the key political issues between the government and the opposition, with control of the Georgian Public Broadcaster one of the prominent sites of disagreement.
While national TV dominates the media landscape, independent media often struggles to get a foothold and get its voice heard. In the first of two exclusive dispatches, Eka Chitanava told us about some remarkable accusations of espionage upon photojournalists in July, May's earlier clashes between police and journalists, media training in the country and what's next for the evolution of Georgian journalism.