News from Ukraine and Georgia 🌍 | Freelance PRESS 📰 | Czecho-British 🇨🇿🇬🇧 | 12 Months in Ukraine 🇺🇦 | Moje názory jsou mé vlastní ✍️
Czech Republic
Joined August 2016
- Tweets5.9K
- Following607
- Followers5.4K
- Likes7.7K
Pinned Tweet
After 34 hours of being unlawfully detained at the Tbilisi airport without almost any connection with the world I’m now in safety currently at the airport in Warsaw.
I’m devastated to leave Georgia. These elections are crucial to the country and to the whole world. I will now be travelling to Prague. Hoping that with the help of others I might be able to go back to Sakartvelo in the near future.
Thank you to everyone who was helping me - to those who came to the airport in Tbilisi, friends journalists, the Czech authorities and many of you here online.
I will explain my state, conditions I was kept in and the 34 hours when I was I believe unlawfully detained in furthers posts.
Any media who wants to contact me please write to me on my comment below - I’m happy to talk more after I speak to my legal representative and the Czech state.
Thank you once again to everyone. I hope I will be back Sakartvelo. 🇬🇪
🙏🏻
I’ve seen Caolan Robertson’s response, where he acknowledges lifting our video. He blames it on his editor but ultimately takes responsibility.
It’s always good to see people own their mistakes, it makes this space better for everyone. I appreciate it and accept his apology.
The five seconds of video is easy to dismiss, but five seconds of an animated map takes hours of work — research from a journalist and manual work from a videographer and a graphic designer. Our video team is small but we do our best to make sure our video reporting is well researched and properly sourced.
Caolan @CaolanReports says he wants to learn from this and improve his practices. I think that’s the right call, especially since other journalists have spoken out about past cases where Caolan used their work without credit. Hopefully, this will be the push to review those practices. It would help to look into the video’s origin before launching a public attack, too.
As for further steps.
Caolan says he emailed us to resolve it. We have checked our inboxes, including organization’s and my own, and found no messages from him. He is very welcome to reach me or the team directly. A private conversation is always more effective.
On the copyright claim. Yesterday, Caolan filed an appeal to our claim with Youtube, which automatically blocks our right to retract the claim while the appeal is being considered.
That said, we decided we will not contest his appeal or take legal action about the copyright infringement. If we don’t participate, YouTube will likely remove the strike from his channel. We made this decision because Caolan acknowledged his mistake and pledged to improve.
I hope this ends it and we can all move on and focus on our actual work: bringing truthful reporting from Ukraine to the world.
RayBaseley retweeted
@CaolanReports does really good reporting from Ukraine, and I respect him for that. But in this case, I’m with @KyivIndependent.
The fact that Caolan edited out the logo doesn’t put him in a good light. Also, it’s not the first time he’s done that. There was a case involving a photo of a Ukrainian farmer from Suspilne news that Caolan used without credit.
When asked about it, he was toxic toward the Ukrainian journalist. So I think it’s important for pro-Ukraine voices to respect each other’s work 🤷♂️
What do you think?🤔
The Kyiv Independent situation says a lot about Caolan’s attitude towards journalism and his colleagues.
He accused an entire newsroom of attacking press freedom and jeopardising his livelihood, yet Olga Rudenko has now explained that their animated map was used without permission and their logo was cropped out. Instead of acknowledging the issue, he chose to publicly attack the journalists whose work he used.
This isn’t the first time questions have been raised about his sourcing and attribution. His Aughinish Alumina documentary also prompted criticism from journalists who had already reported on the story and the developments he later presented as the impact of his investigation.
I’ve also heard from several sources about Caolan allegedly disparaging fellow journalists producing English-language content at industry events and embassies. I cannot independently verify those accounts, but they raise further questions about how he treats colleagues.
You cannot demand journalistic solidarity while disregarding the work of other journalists. You cannot expect everyone to defend you when you refuse to give others the same respect.
Journalism requires accountability, proper attribution and respect for other people’s work. These standards apply to everyone, regardless of audience size.
Credit matters. And solidarity has to go both ways.
unavailable
RayBaseley retweeted
„Deník N mluvil se třemi z lidí, kteří byli v noci policií vyvedeni z galerie Poslanecké sněmovny. Popisují, jak jim policie zabavila transparenty a tvrdí, že museli „jménem zákona“ klečet na chodbě."
Tohle si platíme z daní a ono to slouží ruským kolaborantům
RayBaseley retweeted
Albánie a tamní divoké protesty proti nerovnosti a korupci nikoho v Česku nezajímají a na twitteru už vůbec ne.
Nedají se do nich přimíchat migranti.
RayBaseley retweeted
#Czechia: RSF calls on MPs to firmly reject the bill to replace licence fees with decreased funding from the state budget, a major threat to the independence of the country’s public media. The draft law, hastily tabled today by the ruling majority, runs counter to the European Media Freedom Act, which is binding for all EU states.
