By Joe Raffelberg (Text) and Giga Paitchadze (Illustration)*

The small party led by Laura Gogoladze is winding its way through the snow outside Kharagauli in the Caucasus Mountains. Ms Gogoladze, the publisher of the Chemi Kharagauli weekly (http://www.chemikharagauli.com), and her distributor Maia Maghradze have not ventured into the villages of the newspaper’s footprint to enjoy an outing in a fairy tale landscape; they are signing up subscribers to the publication that has been informing townsfolk and villagers for 14 years. Not an easy job especially in winter when you barely have funds for heating the tiny editorial room (pictured right and below) located right next to the Town Hall. There local town councilors in warmer offices render decisions that make life difficult for the weekly thorn in their flesh. For the newspaper time and again exposes wrongdoing through its impartial and critical reporting that the majority of the officials regard as attacks on their efforts. However, when two IREX representatives of the USAID funded G-MEDIA program – myself and Giga – visited them in early December they sounded less belligerent. Discussing Chemi Kharagauli’s coverage Mr Temur Gamtsemlidze, a member of President Mikheil Saakashvili’s ruling party, summed up positive sentiment saying: “It’s often hard to accept their criticism but then it helps us making things better.” Continue reading →