On September 24, at Open Society Georgia Foundation’s Office was held a presentation of renewed web-pages of the newspapers “24 Hours” http://www.24saati.ge/, “Kviris Palitra” http://www.kvirispalitra.ge/, “Resonance” http://www.resonansedaily.com/, “P.S” http://www.psnews.info/ and “Guriis Moambe” http://www.guriismoambe.ge/, funded in terms of Media Support program.
The competition was announced in spring, 2009 and aimed at awarding grants for development of existing web-pages of the print media. The Foundation selected 5 winner newspapers and awarded the grant of USD 6000.
The newspapers presented their web-pages totally refurbished in design and program support.
Newspaper ‘24 Hours’ presented its web-page which is built on contemporary technologies, RRS functions and multimedia uploading capacity. “Initially we wanted to make our newspaper more interactive, to invite the readers of digital media and those who are well aware of its features”, said Tamuna Naskidashvili, e-newspaper project manager.
The editor-in-chief and publisher of the newspaper ‘P.S.’, Nato Gubeladze said at the presentation that the newspaper’s old web-page had very limited resources and it enabled only publication of texts. According to her, the web-site had no search engine and that’s why the editors decided to participate in the competition.
“After renewal the web-site became more interactive. This will increase popularity of our newspaper. Until now we were unable to distribute our newspaper throughout Georgia; now our e-newspaper will increase the number of our readers not only in Georgia but outside it too”, said Gubeladze.
Representative of newspaper “Kviris Palitra”, Giorgi Jorjoliani presented totally new web-site of the newspaper which maintains the corporate details of its printed version. Newspaper archive and material are uploaded on the web. The material is systemized in topics to make it comfortable to the users. “While in the past we would offer our readers only some key articles, today they can get more information”, said Giorgi Jorjoliani.
“Despite the fact that the web-site was recently opened, the statistical number of our visitors has considerably increased. This was the first grant obtained by “Kviris Palitra”. We hope that our e-newspaper will turn into an important source of income for our newspaper”, said Jorjoliani.
The editor of newspaper “Guria News” stated: “We would like to express our special thanks to the Foundation. As a result of placing outdoor advertisement in Guria about the newspaper’s web-page, the number of our readers doubled; this is profitable for us”.
The Director of “Open Society – Georgia Foundation”, Qeti Khutsishvili stated after the presentation that supporting media development will remain within the priories next year too.
Khatia Jinjikhadze
Media Development Program Manager