Georgia improved its position and holds 77th place in the World Press Freedom Index 2023 among 180 countries with 61,69 points. Last year, the country ranked 89th place with 59,3 points.

The report published by Reporters Without Borders, an international non-profit and non-governmental organization, says that the media environment is becoming “increasingly hostile for independent and opposition media and the country saw an unprecedented number of physical assaults on journalists in 2021.”

Based on the report, the media landscape is diverse and, at the same time, “highly politically polarised.” Manipulation, hate speech and disinformation are widespread in the media, especially on television, the main source of information.

The report reads that Georgia is undergoing a new and serious political crisis following contested legislative elections in October 2020.

“This environment favours sustained competition for control of television networks. Georgian law prohibits political parties from owning media, but the big networks generally defend the interests of their owners, who often have close ties to political leaders. The same goes for state-owned media, which are subject to interference by the authorities. At the same time, the authorities often refuse to respond to media that criticise them and sometimes resort to censorship, raids, smear campaigns and intimidation.”

According to the report, verbal and physical assaults on journalists are frequent, including by senior government officials, especially during election campaigns.

“A sustained and brutal assault on 50 reporters during homophobic counter-demonstrations in July 2021, in front of impassive security forces, marked an unprecedented setback. The lack of transparency and progress in the investigation of the event, as well as the three-and-a-half-year sentence for the director of an opposition TV channel, Nika Gvaramia, speak to the impunity enjoyed by those who commit crimes against journalists,” the report reads.