The protest took place in support of the criminal reporter Boris Mitov who had to give explanations to the prosecutors twice in relation to his critical publication on a wiretapping scandal, involving Sofia’s vice-chief prosecutor Roman Vassilev and the current head of the state legal authority Sotir Tsatsarov.

More than 100 Bulgarian journalists and citizens gathered on Monday in front of the Palace of Justice in Sofia to protest against the violation of freedom of speech by the state prosecution. The protest took place in support of the criminal reporter Boris Mitov who had to give explanations to the prosecutors twice in relation to his critical publication on a wiretapping scandal, involving Sofia’s vice-chief prosecutor Roman Vassilev and the current head of the state legal authority Sotir Tsatsarov. (read more…)

In a letter to the managing editors of the ‘Monitor’ daily, Petya Baharova and Todor Varchev, published on the embassy website, the German Ambassador in Sofia, Matthias Hoepfner, expressed surprise and concern because of the cuts made in an interview of his published in the newspaper on October, reports BTA. (read more…)

Bulgaria has a problem with transparency of media ownership and financing. The society does not know who (really) owns the media, or how are they financed even when it comes to public funds - either Bulgarian or European. This opacity is ideal environment for unhealthy dependencies between media, businesses and government to thrive, which distorts the media, economic and political environment, and deprives society of pluralism and independent journalism. It calls into question the respect of democratic values in the country, thus ranking Bulgaria next to Romania and Hungary and making the problems of Bulgarian media a European problem.

(read more…)

“I will always speak up for media freedom when it is under threat in EU member states and put political pressure on governments”, Neelie Kroes, the EU commissioner told a seminar organized by the Association of European Journalists (AEJ) on May 8 in the European parliament. But Ms Kroes admitted that the European Commission does not have the legal right to intervene when freedom of expression rights are broken. “No, we do not have the legal competence to defend media freedom in the member states” she said. 

(read more…)

“Corporate journalism” as it is called in Bulgaria undermines the credibility of most media and creates distrust among journalists. This one of the conclusions about the media sector in Bulgaria, drawn by the Vienna-based South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO). (read more…)

The 96th annual Pulitzer Prizes in Journalism, Letters, Drama and Music, awarded on the recommendation of the Pulitzer Prize Board, were announced on April 16 by Columbia University. (read more…)

On March 22, 2012, the expert discussion “Regulation and Freedom: The future of Media Legislation in Bulgaria” was held in Sofia. The event, which gathered at one place journalists, media experts, representatives of the NGO sector and the National Parliament, was organized by Foundation Media Democracy and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Foundation.

(read more…)

Media and civil soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions from through­out Europe call a con­fer­ence on 26 April to launch the Euro­pean Citizen’s Ini­tia­tive (ECI). (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.

(read more…)

Which are the journalistic pieces of work that manipulate the public opinion in favour of the public powers or in favour of individual intеrests? And which are the articles that focus on original and socially important issues, showing thinking out of the box? These are the questions that the Association of European Journalists – Bulgaria (AEJ) is eager to answer by ranking the examples of high-quality journalism and those that represent the worst practices in the field of journalism in 2011. (read more…)