Bulgaria
Bulgaria has been ranked 71 out of 180 countries in the 2023 World Press Freedom Index, which is issued by Reporters Without Borders annually. Compared to last year, Bulgaria’s WPFI has improved by 20 ranks.
Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, is an independent NGO that works to defend press freedom, according to the Council of Europe. The WPFI ranks 180 countries based on the level of freedom available to journalists. The index is determined by experts’ responses to a questionnaire and quantitative data on abuses against journalists. The WPFI measures five indicators: a country’s political context, media law, media funding, sociocultural context, and journalists’ safety.
In the past two years, Bulgaria’s index has experienced an extreme improvement. The index has been over 100 since 2013, in 2022 the index was 91 and this year 71. One of the reasons is the drastic change in the Bulgarian government over the past two years, RSF says. The corrupt and right-leaning party, which was in power for over 12 years, was exchanged by a pro-European and more liberal government this June.
The WPFI partly relies on experts’ predictions and hopes for the future. Therefore, Bulgaria’s score has already improved even before the actual political change took place. Additionally, Bulgaria’s index is in a range where countries’ scores vary only minimally, thus even small changes in the score can lead to significant changes in rank. This explains why Bulgaria has moved 20 positions up the rank, while the actual score has only changed from 59.12 to 62.98 out of 100.
The majority of Bulgaria’s media is in the hand of a few entrepreneurs who take all editorial policy decisions, RSF criticizes. Since the media is heavily dependent on advertising income, in which the government plays a big role, the government has a big influence on media outlets. RSF also points out that the distribution of EU funds to the media is entirely untransparent. Bulgaria also faces the problem of Oligarchs, who acquire rights over media outlets and thereby gain influence over public opinion and politics, the German information portal lpb states .
RSF notes that since June, the new government under Prime Minister Nikolaj Denkow has taken two important measures to improve press freedom and journalists’ safety. Firstly, on August 4, the fine for defaming a government official was reduced from 7500 to 3500 euros, which is the fine for defaming any person. This helps to protect Bulgarian journalists against legal intimidation by politicians. Secondly, on July 26 the parliament rejected a proposal that would have heavily restricted journalists’ access to information.
When Prime Minister Denkow visited AUBG on October 23, he explained why the government decided to take these steps.
“There are two ways to fight for the media. One of them is to ban something. If you start to go in this direction, you don’t know how this will finish. Especially if someone after you comes, banning and using restrictions is a very easy way to go even further down in this index. The conclusion was, we have to use transparency.”
According to RSF, there were no journalists killed in Bulgaria in the past years. However, Bulgarian journalists are regularly threatened and even physically assaulted, and very often victims to legal pressure.
Shortly before World Press Freedom day on May 3 this year, two Bulgarian investigative media platforms, BIRD.bg and Bivol.bg, faced heavy lawsuits and legal pressure because of their recent research and publications about corruption, the Resource centre on media freedom in Europe says. BIRD was then facing 10 and Bivol was facing 4 lawsuits.
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Magdalena Fuchs is majoring in journalism & media management and is currently doing an exchange semester at the American University in Bulgaria. Magdalena wishes to educate people on politics and encourage people to use their voice and actively participate in democracy.
