In the last five days of the conflict between Georgia and Russia, there have been innumerable opinions about which is right/wrong, which is the aggressor/victim. Confusion will reign on those questions for some time. One thing is clear, there is a true point of success for Georgia in communications.
At every turn, Georgia’s President Saakashvili has been live, at the top of the news hour in all forms of media, all around the globe. Journalists are being generously offered one on one interviews with Saakashvili, who appears with a slide show, updated for each appearance. He mobilized Presidents of neighboring nations to travel to Tblisi, and the rally of citizens was (succesfully) planned to maximize press coverage.
In contrast, Russia has relied primarily on unnamed spokepeople from the Kremlin and various Ministries. Russian President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin have also made use of surrogates, such as France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Russia have may be the victor in the short term military conflict, but Georgia is the clear winner in the communciations battle, which may pay significant long term dividends.
Published Date: August 13, 2008