Newspapers Fade Away in Georgian Capital
As old kiosks are swept away, newspaper vendors say they can't afford upmarket premises now on offer.
Newspapers Fade Away in Georgian Capital
As old kiosks are swept away, newspaper vendors say they can't afford upmarket premises now on offer.
Media organisations in Georgia say new licensing rules for street traders in the capital Tbilisi are doing serious damage to newspaper sales.
As part of a project to smarten up Tbilisi, the ramshackle kiosks that have been a feature of the city for the last two decades are being replaced with slick new facilities. Trading licenses are auctioned online under the “1,000 New Kiosks” project.
The city authorities insist open auctions are the only way to ensure everyone has an equal chance of getting one of the new-look kiosks.
But most have gone to companies selling fast food, cigarettes or lottery tickets. Newspaper distributors have been unable to match their bids, and the number of newsstands has plummeted as a result.
“In the course of these auctions, the annual cost of renting a stall in a densely populated area has reached 45,000 laris [27,000 US dollars]. Georgian publishers don’t have that kind of money,” Dachi Grdzelishvili of the Kviris Palitra newspaper said. “It’s a very difficult situation. It’s hindering distribution of all the independent newspapers. The number of kiosks selling newspapers is falling all the time. There will soon come a time when it’s impossible to buy a paper on the street.”
Three press distribution companies – Planet Forte, Matsne and Elva Service – said in December that only 21 of the 144 kiosks they used to have in the city still remained. As a result, they said, sales of magazines and newspapers had fallen by 75 or 80 per cent, forcing them to lay off 180 members of staff.
The three firms said they were not asking for concessions, just a recognition that newsstands merited separate status because of the service they performed.
“They should announce a competition just for selling newspapers, and it should be a more open contest,” Merab Chanchalashvili, director of Planet Forte, told a news conference.
Some commentators argue that the urban renewal scheme conceals a desire to stifle the press.
“I can’t remember there being such a deliberate attack on the media. There have been individual cases, but now the war on the media has become vicious,” Aleko Tskitishvili, editor of the website www.humanrights.ge, said.
Several Georgian newspapers published an appeal to President Mikheil Saakashvili on December 19 with the words “Don’t kill the press!” The following day, journalists staged a protest outside the president’s official residence.
Earlier appeals went unheeded, such as a statement by the Press Association of Georgia in November accusing the Tbilisi mayor’s office of seeking “the destruction of the current system of print media distribution, and creating a real threat to freedom of speech”.
Tbilisi’s municipal government replied to the criticism by saying it was wrong to politicise a process of creating “honest competition, business development and job creation”. It insisted that the auction process was fair, with no loopholes, and allowing kiosks to operate outside the system would undermine those who had won licenses by the proper procedures.
“We have heard… that newspaper kiosk owners are unable to compete with other traders. I think that’s the wrong approach,” Bacho Dolidze, spokesman for the mayor’s office, said. “The owners of press distribution kiosks are economic actors as well, and in competition with other traders. So if we give precedence to one group, it will dissatisfy the others.”
Media organisations are now looking for alternative sales outlets. In December, they founded the Organisation to Support a Free Press, which will try to introduce a new distribution network in the capital.
According to Lasha Tugushi, one of the organisation’s founders, it might be possible to get round the trading restrictions by selling newspapers from mobile handcarts.
The group is a non-commercial set-up and plans to survive on grants and donations. It has already won a grant from Kartu, a foundation belonging to Georgian billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, who has launched a political career and has ambitions to take over the government.
Shorena Latatia is an IWPR-trained journalist in Georgia.
