28
2011 ANNUAL REPORT
material about companies and other institutions which have refused to advertise in that media”; “imposition of a prohibition on asking the ministers questions”; and “direct telephone calls from senior government officials.”38 The crisis in the job market has forced journalists to accept what until recently were unacceptable conditions in the editorial offices and to work under pressure. In order to trace the influence of the government and owners on journalistic work, in December 2011 BHC turned to eight authoritative Bulgarian journalists from popular national newspaper and online publications with eight questions.39 Their answers included claims such as: “The prime minister applies the most [pressure]. As far as I know, he regularly calls the owner if he is unhappy about some critical report or commentary that happened to slip through. […] The problem, however, is not so much with the direct pressure, but rather with self-censorship”; “In Bulgaria, no media owner makes his money primarily from his media, and this makes the public environment especially dirty. Corporate journalism has nothing to do with journalism”; “The media have categorically changed. They are less free and primarily serve the superficial interest for entertaining and gossip-filled stories, rather than providing valuable information which would be useful and meaningful to active people in Bulgaria. The Bulgarian media at the moment are almost in as serious a crisis as they were before 1989”; “The environment in which the media work in Bulgaria is seriously deformed. There is a monopoly and censorship. The impression is given of a deal between political brokers who control a large part of the electronic and print media and the executive power.” 38 http://www.aej-bulgaria.org/2011/10/ http://www.aej-bulgaria.org/2011/10/ 39 http://www.bghelsinki.org/bg/publikacii/ obektiv/obektiv/2012-01/za-da-ne-ostane-razgovori-v-mraka/.
Once again, during 2011 the media environment was characterized by a reduction in quality investigations and analyses. The rise of “yellow” and commercial media continues, since owners aim at an ever more mass audience in order to sell their influence to this audience. It continues to pull away from the aims and functions of classical journalism; the sector loses ever more meaning and confidence. The Media Democracy Foundation’s annual report established that serious commentators and publicists, investigative journalists, analyses, in-depth interviews, expert discussions and documentaries are being replaced by talk shows or reality formats, by entertaining shows, which, according to the foundation, “colonize the public television sphere, instrumentalize journalism, and reformat the perception of and requirements towards reality.”40 In the months before the presidential and local elections in 2011, many media began to openly sell their editorial content, transforming from a means of information into an instrument for propaganda. This media published “news” from the campaigns, but only if they were paid for. The problem is that in a gross violation of journalistic ethics, these paid publications were not clearly labeled as such. Thus, the media in practice lied to its audience that the editors considered that event important. An investigation in Capital showed that when signing a contract for PR coverage, the political parties or candidates explicitly want the text of the contract with the media outlet to state that there shall be no label or information indicating a paid publication.41 In connection with this it is crucial to reexamine the question of paid political advertisement in the Election Code. 40 http://www.fmd.bg/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/fmd-bulgarian-media-monitoring2011-report-eng2.pdf 41 http://www.capital.bg/biznes/media_i_ reklama/2011/10/14/1177283_predatelstvoto_na_ mediite/.