Comment

“They offered me a non-formal deal on behalf of Ivanishvili… I rejected it” – Nodar Meladze speaks about the details of the meeting

After Rustavi-2 was transferred into ownership of Kibar Khalvashi, the representative of Bidzina Ivanishvili came to me and offered me the deal, - stated Nodar Meladze.

According to him, the mentioned deal conditioned that all the topics should have been agreed upon with the representative of Ivanishvili.

“Two weeks ago, the representative of the person close to Bidzina Ivanishvili met me. Everyone in the newsroom knew about this fact. The stance of that person was that they did not want to make “Imedia” out of “Rustavi 2”. There would still be a certain dose of the criticism. They would not fire me and I would keep on being the head of the information service of “Rustavi 2”. I would just have to give them a communication channel. There would be a person (neither Lasha Natsvlishvili nor Koka Kandiashvili who runs the state media) who would communicate with me concerning certain issues and I would have to plan the agenda according to the decisions of that person. The head of the information service of “Rustavi 2” plans all the broadcasts and accordingly, he/she has access to all the stories. Thus, it would be a very simple solution to them if I agreed to that proposal. They would say that I am still the head of the information service and the editorial policy would remain the same. Though, according to them, “the temperature and the degree of the criticism would decrease”. They also told me that it was in the interest of Bidzina Ivanishvili to prepare the stories concerning the corruption of some officials as Bidzina Ivanishvili himself struggles against the thieves of the budget; though, there were some issues, which we should not have addressed. Of course, I rejected this proposal”, - said Nodar Meladze.