The so-called culture of pressure in Bulgaria’s media has been on the rise recently. The advertising departments have been interfering actively in the editorial policy of the media. Those are the conclusions of the unofficial survey of the Association of European Journalists - Bulgaria about the freedom of speech in 2015. The survey was done online between June 19 and July 30, 2015 and covered a total of 143 Bulgarian journalists. 53.8% of the polled journalists admit that they were personally restricted in the fulfillment of their duties at work and 72% say that their colleagues have been subject to illegal pressure.

“If in 2013, 52% of the surveyed nationals assessed the freedom of speech in Bulgaria as bad and 40% answered that it was satisfactory, in 2015 those who assessed that freedom as satisfactory are 31.5% of all who participated in the polling and 42% of them said that the freedom of speech was in bad state”, analyst Ilia Valkov summarizes.

Although the media climate in Bulgaria has improved slightly, the results show that the indicator of self-censorship and the concentration of the media ownership are deteriorating. 9% of the Bulgarian journalists said that they avoid important topics on a regular basis and 46% of them said that sometimes they had to do that. 45% of the polled journalists say that they do not practice self-censorship. The self-censorship is usually caused by pressure exerted by media owners, the fear of being paid less, conformism and even laziness. The ambition of the journalists to keep their contacts with local politicians and the opportunity to receive more information often makes them avoid strong criticism. HereiswhatIliaValkovtoldRadioBulgaria further:

“The political figures, the state and municipal institutions continue to influence seriously the media content, due to the fact that some media receive financing under European projects and some of them are used as horns of given governments. 67% of the surveyed journalists said that they receive phone calls from politicians and that politicians are angry on them for given publications written against those political figures. The number of hidden PR materials which become part of the media content has been growing recently, which can be seen even during the current campaign for the forthcoming local elections in Bulgaria.”

83.9% of the journalists said that the main problem of the Bulgarian media environment was linked with the amalgamation of political and economic interests in the media management. 82.5% of them said that the biggest problem regards the monopolizing of the media environment and 65.7% said that the non-transparent ownership of Bulgaria’s media was the biggest issue. 62.9% of the respondents said that the low educational and practical training of the journalists influence negatively the development of local media.

What happens with the Bulgarian regional media?

“Journalists from the regional media are often threatened. Unlike the national survey where our colleagues usually say that they are pressurized through slander, defamation and black PR, the regional journalists say that they are often threatened with lawsuits”, Maria Cheresheva from the Association of European Journalists- Bulgaria explains.

Some journalists contend that paid political announcements are published as news during the election campaign and that the hidden commercials are made through interviews of given candidates to the expense of others. It is interesting to note that a Bulgarian media previously announced that the political parties which write their own materials would get a 15% discount to the price. In the town of Kazanlak for instance seven local journalists were forced to sign a police warning that they would never write anything against the local authorities. It happened after publication of journalists about the floods that affected that region.

“If we dare more often to do what is expected from us as journalists - to be intermediaries between the citizens and the authorities and ask uneasy questions, then perhaps the confidence towards our profession would be resumed. The more we betray the citizens, the wider the gap between us and the society”, Vesislava Antonova from Capital daily said.

English version: Kostadin Atanasov