Ivanishvili admitts to meddling in the media

Bidzina Ivanishvili is heartbroken that he failed despite all his effort to form a "responsible media" in the country. In his farewell letter, the oligarch  accuses the media of deliberately discrediting the country.

“You all remember the media and the shape it was in. The ruling party had captured – and was in full control of – all three national broadcasters (Imedi, Rustavi 2, and the Public Broadcaster). Party leaders ran the news domain in line with their own agenda – they determined the sequence of news broadcasting and often even personally wrote texts for the news! A consolidated propaganda machine was set in motion to make use of every means to influence people’s views. It took years to restore justice at these captured TV stations; unfortunately, however, the machine of lies described above continues to work to this day because both the political client in Mikheil Saakashvili and the providers in party functionaries and journalists turned media managers are still very much around. We have changed many things in the country, having dealt with many challenges and tackled numerous problems, but we have yet to defeat lies and uproot them from the news domain – one task that may even be impossible in our modern world. Instead, through proper state governance and rejection of propaganda, we have succeeded in providing people with a free and pluralistic environment. This is precisely why in the end, the majority of citizens can correctly differentiate between good and evil.