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unitwinidevaw2021
Dec 1, 20215 min read

“COME HERE, TRASH!”

A study on censorship of female journalists in Bulgaria

 

Freedom of expression is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace. Free, independent, and fact-based journalism serves to protect against abuse of power, lies and war propaganda. Nevertheless, we recognize that the conditions the media operate in are becoming more and more restrictive and oppressive (Christians et al. 2009: 240). This oppression prevents a stable, independent, and trustworthy media system.

A 2020 report from UNESCO highlights the condition of risk towards journalists, especially female reporters, that are often victims of intimidation, gender-based violence and censorship. These are all attacks that have a negative impact on media freedom.

This article will analyze a subtle yet deleterious way of exercising violence against women journalists and preventing media freedom: censorship. We decided to focus our study on Bulgaria, because it’s one of the lowest ranked countries in the European Union in terms of media freedom.


CENSORSHIP, SELF-CENSORSHIP, SOFT-CENSORSHIP AND MEDIA FREEDOM

Over the past decade, the independence and pluralism of Bulgaria’s media has eroded steadily. This is what emerges from a 2016 report of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, prepared by the South East Europe Media Organization. Despite institutional guarantees and right to access to public information, media freedom and freedom of expression are increasingly constrained in Bulgaria. Bulgarian authorities are progressively employing tools of "soft censorship" to dominate and influence the country's media.

Soft censorship, or indirect censorship, is defined as any official actions aiming at influencing media output. These forms of indirect censorship include selective and partisan allocation of funds and advertising, as well as biased application of regulations and allocation of licenses, which can influence editorial content but also affect media outlets' sustainability.

Media outlets in Bulgaria are all operated by both state-owned and for-profit corporations, and depend on advertising, subscriptions, and other sales-related revenues. The heavy economic crisis that the country is facing has made the media more and more dependent on state advertising and other subsidies. In such a context, media owners and journalists know that critical coverage of people in government and public institutions may lead to the denial or withdrawal of economic support, so self-censorship may be necessary for economic survival.


MONITORING MEDIA PLURALISM IN THE DIGITAL ERA - BULGARIA

The MPM, Media Pluralism Monitor, is a project involving 32 European countries. It’s the flagship project of the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom, and it’s co-founded by the European Union. The result of the project highlights a deterioration in all four areas considered: protection, market plurality, political independence, and social inclusion. None of the countries analyzed is exempt from threats to media pluralism. From this important and voluminous project, we took in consideration some of the indicators that we thought were more relevant for our studies on Bulgarian censorship.


CASE STUDIES

There are many specific challenges that female journalists face. Two recent cases of violent threats against women journalists, who were simply doing their jobs, can illustrate the gender-based prejudice and aggression in the public culture and political and legal framework in the country.

  • In December 2020 the representative Member of the European Parliament Alexander Yordanov posted on social networks sexist insults to the journalist Silvia Velikova from the Bulgarian National Radio because of her questions asked during an interview with him. They were about his role and objectives in the European Parliament as a member of the ruling party GERB, as well as his previous role in the now defunct conservative party SDS. Yordanov insulted the journalist, calling her a "local gossip", a "laikuchka" (a more polite/censored word for “bitch”) and a "broken record player" who is asking "stupid questions".


  • In August 2020, journalist Polina Paunova from “Free Europe'' was subject to attacks by young men admitted to the fenced area for participants in the National Conference of the GERB political party in Sofia. Paunova's phone was thrown away, she herself was hit. Her colleague, also a female journalist, was filming the events. Paunova was performing her official duties as a journalist, trying to access the site of the event and to interview people she had seen before provoking anti-government protesters. A security man asked her if she had a journalist badge. When she showed it to him, he denied her access to the GERB conference and told her that her badge is not good for anything.

Paunova: Look, I’m a journalist, why did you hit me? How’s it possible? Aren’t you security, don’t you have a badge? Are you not ashamed?

Security: “Come here, trash”


The perpetrators were later identified, but the politicians who allowed this to happen were never held accountable. The men who showed aggression towards Paunova had been given access by the security guards of the event, many of whom were wearing badges but stood idly by and watched the scene while the journalists called for help.


CONCLUSION

As an EU member-state, Bulgaria has yet to achieve an adequate level of media pluralism and freedom from the insidious types of soft censorship employed on different levels throughout the country’s institutions. The different corrupt mechanisms plaguing the media sphere intersect with the specific ways in which Bulgarian women face physical, verbal, and psychological violence. Female journalists are on the receiving end of this double burden of reporting in a vicious political structure where their gender often becomes the main reason for unfair treatment and threats. After all, in 2018 and again this year, Bulgaria’s Constitutional Court decided that the ratification of the international Istanbul Convention against domestic violence was anti-constitutional. A country where a human rights treaty against domestic violence creates an ongoing controversy does not provide the adequate understanding protecting women, but rather does the opposite. This becomes even more clear when we look at the various examples of silencing of journalists in order to protect the interests of those in power. It illustrates the level of control that certain politicians can exercise over public so-called “pluralist media” which creates a perpetual lack of independence and democracy.





Battaggia Matteo,

Boscaro Sara,

Dai Mengzhu,

Fama Caterina,

Padalska Stefka

REFERENCES


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