My Kharagauli (“Chemi Kharagauli” in Georgian), a regional media outlet in western Georgia’s Kharagauli municipality, said its reporter was edited out of a photo from a meeting at the local council (Sakrebulo).
According to the outlet, Kharagauli Municipality Council uploaded photos from the July 6 meeting, one of which had been edited to remove its reporter, Nino Kapanadze, despite her remaining seated in the same place throughout the meeting. The outlet said that after alerting Kharagauli Deputy Mayor Varlam Chipashvili to the discrepancy, the image was reuploaded with the original version showing the reporter.
The Facebook post’s edit history confirms that one image was deleted and replaced with the version currently displayed. However, it does not indicate which image was removed. Asked to comment, Council Chair Manana Barbakadze told My Kharagauli that she was unaware of any incident and the photographs in question.
The outlet noted that its reporter sat in a chair designated for council members because a separate area for journalists, required under the council’s rules of procedure, was no longer available after the number of council members increased. According to My Kharagauli, journalists have repeatedly raised concerns over the lack of dedicated space at council sessions, with the outlet saying that at the July 6 meeting its reporter was instructed to sit in a seat designated for council officials, while its editor was offered a seat beside the chairperson’s desk.
The incident drew criticism from the Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics, an independent self-regulatory association of journalists, which called on the Kharagauli Municipal Council to “ensure the openness of council sessions, refrain from falsifying photographs depicting reality, and provide adequate working conditions for media representatives.”
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