On 28 June, the GPB covered a public opinion poll which was commissioned by Rustavi 2 and conducted by German-US company GFK. In the report, the broadcaster placed emphasis on the unreliability of the company that conducted the poll, referring to only problematic cases from the activity of the company. (For example, referring that the results of exit-polls conducted by the company in 2012 did not match the results of the elections; various problems appearing in Crimea and Turkey).

Moreover, the poll results were not covered comprehensively. For example, a journalist presented the ratings of the Georgian Dream and the UNM (Georgian Dream - 22,4%, United National Movement - 21,7%, State for People - 7,8 %) without naming the total number of respondents who answered the question “If you decide to participle in 9 October parliamentary elections, who would you vote for?” in the following way: refused to answer (10%), difficult to answer/have not decided yet (19.4%), will not vote for any party (3.9%). Nor did the broadcaster named the margin of error which is an important detail to have a comprehensive understanding of the poll results.

In the report the journalist said:

“The methodology and a contracting company that conducted field works are not known. Rustavi 2 has not made it public yet. It only informed that the poll was conducted in June and covered 2,200 respondents.”

15 Indeed, Rustavi 2 did not name the company which conducted field works but it made other information public, including the methodology. This information was reported on the TV and is also available on the website. Thus the GPB misinformed the audience.

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