The Association of European Journalists – Bulgaria (AEJ-Bulgaria) is deeply concerned about a case of direct pressure applied on the Bulgarian journalist Spas Spassov. (read more…)

Giving light on how the Bulgarian Ministry of Interior receives donations – a brilliant example of the positive role of the media in society, building up the“Green octopus” case – an evidence for their manipulative influence (read more…)

Bulgaria dropped dramatically in the world press freedom ranking of Reporters Without Borders from 70th to 80th place in 2011-2012. The country ranks last among the other EU states, sharing the same index with Serbia, Chile and Paraguay. According to the NGO, Bulgaria fails to address the issue of their media freedom violations, above all because of a lack of political will.

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44 journalists have been killed so far in 2011 and hundreds of media employees have been harassed, threatened or physically attacked. Impunity prevails in many parts of the world for the perpetrators as they seek to influence or mislead public opinion by targeting a free press. These are some of the conclusions of the World Press Freedom Review of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).

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The European Commission is establishing a Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom in Florence with a €600 000 grant to the European University Institute’s (EUI) Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies. (read more…)

“Bad” is the assessment for the freedom of speech in Bulgaria according to the evaluation of journalists who took part in the AEJ -Bulgaria’s survey on press freedom. They were asked to use a five scale method (5-excellent; 4-good; 3-satisfying; 2-bad; 1- very bad) in order to assess the level of  freedom of expression in the country.

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There is a rather widespread practice of indirectly subsidising the media in Bulgaria through state advertising; this is particularly true of money coming from EU operational funds, which are channelled to media outlets either directly, or through selected media agencies. According to media observers, these advertising deals are usually made in exchange for taking a pro-government line.

These are part of the results from the report about Bulgaria produced in the frame of “Media and Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe” project. The project is funded by the European research council. (read more…)

The international non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders anually publishes its world press freedom index.  Here’s what the organization says about the trends in 2010:

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The latest Media Freedom Reports from all member countries of AEJ have been released. This is the first time that reportage from Bulgaria has been included. It was drafted by the team of AEJ-Bulgaria in September last year and then delivered to the AEJ’s 2010 congress in Ordu, Turkey. (read more…)

The Bulgarian Helsinki Commitee (BHC), an independent human rights NGO, issues a report for the development of human rights protection in Bulgaria on yearly basis.

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