Rules of Video Recording in Parliament Change

“Standard TV cameras will be prohibited to record Parliament sessions; it will be allowed only for the Public Broadcaster Second Channel, although journalists will be permitted to record Parliament sessions with a small camera, or a mobile phone,” Vice-Speaker of Parliament Mikheil Machavariani told media.ge today.

Machavariani explained that recording with standard cameras will be prohibited due to possible abuse of the image of MPs.

“MPs think about their image and do not want to be filmed from a bad angle, or to be filmed from the back,” Machavariani says, “big cameras are also uncomfortable; it has happened that I could not see a speechmaker because a camera was in front of me.”

According to hew draft Rules of Procedure of Parliament, which is to be discussed at spring session, a media center will be located in Kutaisi Parliament building and all journalists will be able to see live broadcast from the Parliament session there.

“We did not take the responsibility for recording the sessions on purpose, in order to avoid censorship.  It will be the responsibility of the Second Channel,” Machavariani says.

According to him, journalists will again be free to move around Parliament freely and in the hall of sessions there will be a special lounge for them.

Nino Jangirashvili, Director of Kavkasia TV described the clarification by the Vice-Speaker of Parliament as illogical, as she believes that if recording with small cameras will be allowed, the footage will be the same as if recorded with standard cameras.

“I think they finally plan to fully prohibit recording, which will be very negative, as the Second Channel cameras will not record the footage that we pay attention to – manipulation with voting panels, laws adopted in empty session halls (when unreal quantity of MPs present is shown on the monitor) and etc; the cameras will be aimed only at speechmakers,” Jangirashvili says.

Tamar Rukhadze, head of the news service of Maestro TV agrees to the given opinion.  According to her, small cameras will not catch all the details unlike standard cameras.  “I do not mean the cases when there’s a fight in parliament, as the information itself is important when that happens, but the footage will  be of low quality and uncomfortable for viewers to see.”

Producer of theRustavi2 news service Giorgi Laperashvili refrained to comment to the new initiative of parliament, as he is not fully acquainted with it yet. 

http://www.media.ge/en/stories/rules_of_video_recording