Since the end of November 2024, the country has been in a state of continuous protest. For 315 days, at most of the demonstrations, whether in Tbilisi or in the region, you will see one familiar face, camera in hand. This is journalist Mariam Nikuradze, who during this period, while performing her professional duties, was fined 4 times, totaling 20,000 GEL. The Ministry of Internal Affairs accuses her of “blocking the road.”
Fines are not the only method of persecuting journalists used by the Georgian Dream. It is accompanied by physical violence, damage to equipment, summons for questioning, repressive laws and financial difficulties. Mariam has been in journalism since 2009 and, as a reporter and co-founder and CEO of OC Media, has to deal with all these difficulties.
For example, on December 7, OC Media reported that Mariam Nikuradze might be on the list of people the Georgian Dream government was planning to detain. In the following days, Mariam was summoned for questioning by the criminal police. On December 10, the journalist was questioned in the presence of a magistrate judge at the Tbilisi City Court in connection with a case of gang violence, which was being investigated under Articles 225 and 239 of the Criminal Code.
For 16 years, through documentary photography and multimedia materials, Mariam has told readers many stories from different parts of Georgia — stories that often did not come under the attention of the central media. Despite pressure and attempts at intimidation, she continues to do the same. She often spreads news from the regions, from the outings of parents of prisoners of conscience, or from rallies through her own social platforms and also gives other media the opportunity to use her content.
Aprili Media spoke with Mariam about the founding and development of OC Media, the increased risks to journalists’ safety, and the threat of media extinction.
How Everything Began
“The idea of creating OC Media came to me and Dominik Cagara, my colleague and friend, towards the end of 2016. We were working together at another publication and we didn’t like some things in the media reality of that time,” Mariam tells us.
At that time, online media was changing rapidly: social networks were becoming active, so-called citizen journalists were emerging, and competition was growing regarding who would cover the story first. As Mariam says, this trend reduced the size and quality of articles — five-sentence news stories appeared, journalists were often no longer allowed to work in the field and were preparing material from the office in order not to lose speed.
“All of this lowered the quality. This trend also appeared in my newsroom, and I didn’t like it very much,” recalls Mariam.
“You can’t make money in journalism. When you come here, especially today, you risk a lot. If you understand this and are still motivated, then you’re in the right place.”
In addition to direct communication with respondents and fieldwork, one of his main motivations was the desire to comprehensively cover Caucasian topics — especially the North Caucasus, which was practically absent from the Georgian media at the time.
“When Dominik and I combined our ideas, the following story came up: Open Caucasus Media — meaning Caucasus beyond borders, that is, if we look at this region as a whole. […] I remember at first, we even had journalists in the republics of the North Caucasus, including Chechnya. However, over the years, it became more and more difficult to have journalists on the ground there. We even had to evacuate some. Now the situation in the Caucasus has completely changed in terms of media freedom,” says Mariam.
Soon after the idea came to them, Mariam and Dominik shared it with their friend Caroline, who was the founder of Chaikhana. Caroline helped them secure pilot funding. And so, within a month, the OC Media website was launched, with a team of over ten people.
“I always remember how naive we were when we looked at things. For example, we thought we would have topics arranged day by day. Conditionally, Monday would be the environment day, on Tuesday we would publish an article on women’s rights, on Wednesday we would have another topic that we were interested in, i.e. conflict, human rights, etc., and we would prepare like that from the very beginning. We had written the articles in advance so that we could follow them slowly. Then it turned out that it is not so easy, even if, for example, we write about the environment often, because it is very difficult to work on certain topics in our region,” says Mariam.
Initially, the site was launched in two languages — English and Russian — to easily reach the local audience in the Caucasus region, for whom Russian was a second language. The team spent half of its resources on the English version and half on the Russian version. Mariam recalls that the English-speaking audience was growing very quickly and is still growing today, but the Russian one reached a certain level and stopped. There was a period of experimentation, many attempts to make news available to the Russian-speaking audience as well, but in the end this goal could not be achieved, so the team decided to change their attitude and that is how the idea of cooperation was born.
“We now have 6 partner media in the South Caucasus, which translate our content into four languages: Georgian, Armenian, Azerbaijani and Russian, for which we pay a translation fee. There are two factors here: one, for us it is access to local readers, and for them it is content that they cannot create for certain reasons. For example, Armenia and Azerbaijan do not have journalists on the ground in each other’s countries, etc.”
She explains that the Armenian publication CivilNet often publishes articles from Azerbaijan, and vice versa, the Azerbaijani Meydan TV often takes articles from Armenia. The partnership is quite active, says Mariam — they translate about 40-50 articles a month, and they often say that the articles taken from OC Media are periodically the most read.
Values and Vision
“OC Media (Open Caucasus Media) tells you the latest news from the North and South Caucasus, offering in-depth analysis beyond the headlines on the issues, movements, conflicts, and people that shape the region today” — this is how the OC Media team answers the question “Who are we?”
The website outlines the values by which the publication is guided:
- Integrity: We are politically independent. Our funding, both from institutional donors and our readers, ensures editorial independence and an unwavering commitment to our values. We strive for unbiased, accurate, and honest reporting. We pursue the truth, wherever it leads.
- Justice: We believe in social and economic justice for all.
- Peace: In a region affected by inter-communal and inter-state conflicts, we remain firmly committed to a comprehensive peace that is free from all forms of violence.
- Inclusivity: We advocate for equality for all, strengthening the voice of the people living in the Caucasus.
- Collaboration instead of competition — One of OC Media’s main principles from the beginning has been collaboration with other media outlets.
“OC Media is a platform for marginalized people to give voice. For those who don’t have the opportunity to reach a large audience, this is a way for them to give voice. Among many other things, bringing people closer together, connecting the Caucasus region,” — this is how Mariam summarizes the values and main mission of the media.
It is important for the OC Media team that every new employee shares common values and mission. Otherwise, cooperation never works out, Mariam tells us.
Challenges and the Fight Against Regimes
The editorial office has faced many challenges over the years: the evacuation of journalists, loss of funding, being designated an “undesirable organization” by Russia, and more. The so-called Agents Law was adopted in Russia back in 2012. The scope of the law has gradually expanded over the years to include the media, individual activists, and non-governmental organizations. In 2015, Russia adopted another restrictive law — “On Undesirable Organizations.”
This law affected various international and foreign media outlets and organizations that, in the opinion of the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office, “pose a threat to the foundations of the constitutional order, defense capability, or security of the country.” This list may also include organizations that are not registered under the so-called Agents Law, but are undesirable because they cover Russia in one way or another. Since OC Media was actively covering the North Caucasus, we ended up on this list, Mariam tells us.
“In the article they wrote about us, the reason for including us on this list was that, in their assessment: ‘an organization funded by Western donors was spreading anti-Russian narratives’ — in short, what is now our reality, but at the time it was new and we thought that “It’s a good thing we’re registered in Georgia, so this will never happen to us here. Soon, within a year or two, the law on agents was first introduced in the Georgian parliament, and there was already a threat that at some point we would become targets of these laws in Georgia, and we did.”
In parallel with changes in the political agenda and attitudes towards the media in Georgia, security protocols in the editorial office were also changing.
“For the first time, after the so-called Gavrilov Night, we thought about buying physical equipment. After July 5, we were already discussing when it was better to go out into the field with a press badge and when not. After the agents’ laws, reality became even more complicated, because the police directly confronted us. Now, every time we go out to cover a large rally, we individually discuss what security measures to take to be better protected, but it’s difficult. In November-December, I personally had two cameras broken, my phone was thrown down several times, I was poisoned by unknown substances from a water jet, etc. All this happened despite our efforts to be as protected as possible.”
The new laws have caused us a lot of headaches, Mariam tells us. The publication initially decided to study the laws in detail and draw up plans accordingly, but it gradually became clear that if Georgian Dream decided to prosecute, even potential plans would not provide protection.
“The rule of law is no longer in the country, so if, say, Georgian Dream doesn’t like someone and wants to get rid of them, there’s no need for the so-called FARA law, there are a thousand ways to do it. That’s why we’ve stopped wasting time on this. We’ve changed some things, but we’re continuing our activities as before.”
In parallel with the undemocratic laws developed by the Georgian Dream, the editorial team also faced unexpected challenges – they were evicted from the OC Media office before the so-called FARA came into effect . They had been working from that place for 6 years, but their lease was not renewed. They had difficulty finding a new office.
“When we were already looking for spaces, there were several cases where we were either directly told that they wouldn’t rent to us because we were media, or, for some made-up reason at the last minute — when we had to sign a contract, they refused. This made us realize how much of a deterrent effect this law had even before it was passed. People were afraid to cooperate with an organization that was targeted by this new law.”
Mariam explains that, unlike other media outlets, another challenge is that some of their team members are not Georgian citizens: “Since the problems with entry at the border have arisen, the threat to us has also increased. We have cases when our journalists or editors are delayed at the border. No one has been denied entry yet, but this threat to us, unfortunately, remains active.”
According to her, shared values, mutually agreed decisions, and consideration for each other help the OC Media team develop.
Membership Program — The Power of Reader Support
“Without the media, we wouldn’t know many things. The media investigates and investigates not only daily and political news, but also many hidden stories that we wouldn’t be able to learn from the air. Even corruption schemes and human rights violations that they show us are happening behind the scenes,” says Mariam.
She recalls the spring of 2023, when it was the media and journalists who started the uproar over the Russian law. At that time, representatives of various independent media outlets held a rally in parliament and launched campaigns to explain to the audience why this law was problematic and what danger it would pose to ordinary citizens and the country as a whole.
Mariam says that today the media is struggling to stand by its readers. Despite the skepticism that no one in our region would pay for media and quality news, OC Media decided to try anyway and was one of the first to call on readers for support.
The media first turned on the donation button during the Covid period. Mariam recalls this time more as an experiment, but it was this path that gradually led the editorial team to launch a membership program. The need for reader support became especially apparent in parallel with the second adoption of the Russian law.
Before the membership program, the media had about 50 loyal readers who donated money to the media every month.
“We are in a slightly better position than local media because we have foreign readers and many of our readers are from Western countries, where there is already a developed culture of paying for quality news, and this segment was ready for it. In some ways, this so-called membership program worked more easily.”
Mariam explains how the membership program differs from a donation: subscribers receive exclusive content, gifts, or other benefits in return. For example, an exclusive newsletter, a bag, a notebook, etc.
“Today we have about 400 subscribers, which covers about 10% of our income. We thought we would never achieve this. Their support has been very important during this difficult period. The readers have supported us, and this gives us great strength and hope.”
The work of independent media is a counter-struggle against the regime, and OC Media also believes that they will exist as long as they have the opportunity to do so — physically here or in some other form.
“Mzia is in prison, and I keep saying that while Mzia is in prison, I have no right to stand up and stop what I am doing. […] It is our duty to somehow continue our work outside in his place. What irritates such regimes the most is civil society, protests, and independent media. Independent media can do the most for the opposition by continuing their work, exposing the regime and documenting all kinds of violations or undemocratic steps taken, as well as explaining why this is bad, why we are in the situation we are in.”
OC Media’s goal is to have 1,000 subscribers on the website by the end of 2025 and gradually become a reader-based media outlet.
“The mission and values have brought us this far. Among them, I can’t imagine doing anything else, I just have no interest in doing anything else,” says Mariam.
“The most important thing for strengthening the media today and now is reader support, and I don’t mean just financially. Loyalty, sharing, trust — all of this helps the media a lot and somehow it needs to grow. We need to talk to the readers more, we need to explain what will happen if we disappear — to put it very simply, there will be no one left to tell the truth.”
At this link you can learn more about how you can help OC Media by becoming a member.
Today, independent online media in Georgia is struggling to survive. The repressive regime is trying to suppress voices that speak the truth. A unified platform has been created to support independent media: sinatle.media.
22 online media outlets from all over Georgia have come together to defend what belongs to us all: free speech and democracy. Among the online media outlets participating in the campaign is OC Media.
Your support is crucial in this fight. Donate to support independent online media and help us spread the word.
Transfer to support online media, recipient: “People’s Source”:
- TBC Bank: #GE76TB7548536080100013
- Bank of Georgia: #GE06BG0000000609779465
- From emigration: https://www.gofundme.com/…/help-media-in-the-fight-for…