Home Page Countries Organizations Special Issues
Publications Links Profile Communication
The Greek Human Rights Web Pages

RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
___________________________________________________________
RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 5, No. 14, Part II, 22 January 2001


BULGARIAN MEDIA LAW HAS LESSONS FOR CZECHS

By Ron Synovitz

About 200 Bulgarian journalists signed a petition last
week to protest the way the country's broadcasting council is
handling the selection of the next director of National
Radio. The journalists are demanding the resignation of the
seven-member National Council for Radio and Television. They
say that after one failed search for a new radio director,
the council has proven itself unable to fulfill its duties.
The journalists also accuse council members of violating
procedures that are outlined in Bulgaria's state broadcasting
laws.
Bulgarian media law now looks very much like what
striking public TV journalists in the Czech Republic would
like their country to adopt. But the Bulgarian variant does
not appear to be working well in practice.
Members of Bulgaria's broadcast council are nominated by
non-governmental organizations from a broad cross-section of
society. They are supposed to be journalists, critics or
artists. Four of the seven council members are appointed by
parliament and three are named by the presidency.
But Bulgarian journalists say the law, although looking
good on paper, has not prevented partisanship from creeping
into public media.
Earlier this month, the Bulgarian council rejected five
candidates who were nominated for the job of directing
national radio. As called for by law, each candidate was
nominated by a non-governmental journalism organization.
Among those rejected by the council was outgoing National
Radio director Alexander Velev, whose term of office expired
this month.
Journalists complain that the council exceeded its
powers by naming an interim director while it conducts a
second search. There also are complaints that some candidates
in the first round of nominations were rejected because of
their political affiliations rather than on the basis of
their ability to do the job.
Opposition members of parliament have called for an
extraordinary meeting of the legislature's culture and media
committee to look into the matter. In making the call for the
sessions, commission deputy chairman Dimo Dimov said concerns
have been raised about the possibility that the next director
of National Radio may be chosen on the basis of political
affiliation.
Dimov says the parliamentary committee meeting should
take place before the council takes a final decision on the
next National Radio director. He also says the commission's
session should be open to members of the broadcasting council
as well as to National Radio journalists.
To be sure, no one in Bulgaria questions the fact that
political affiliations play a factor in the appointment of
national media directors. Bulgaria went through a series of
short-lived governments in the early 1990s. In every case,
one of the first steps of the new government was to replace
the previous state radio and television directors with their
own candidates.
President Petar Stoyanov's chief spokeswoman, Neri
Terzieva, knows from her own personal experience during the
early 1990s about the political nature of the top state
broadcasting posts. As a pro-western reformist who openly
supported the anti-communist Union of Democratic Forces, or
UDF, Terzieva was the manager at state TV responsible for
creating the country's second national television channel,
Efir 2, in 1992.
Terzieva attempted to foster a new kind of journalism in
Bulgaria based on Western standards of objectivity rather
than on the political patronage system of the totalitarian
era. But Terzieva herself was forced to leave her post as
director of state TV director after the resignation of UDF
Prime Minister Philip Dimitrov in December 1992.
In the mid-1990s, the former communists in the Bulgarian
Socialist Party passed laws giving the legislature power to
directly appoint state broadcast media bosses.
The current media law was passed after UDF election
victories in 1997 gave anti-communists control over both the
parliament and the presidency. At first, the law gave the
UDF-dominated parliament the exclusive right to name the
bosses of state radio and TV. But complaints from journalists
led to the creation of the National Council for Radio and
Television as a way of reducing parliament's control over
broadcasting.
Terzieva told RFE/RL that in the current case President
Stoyanov thinks the council has abided by the laws. She says
regulations on the appointment of a National Radio director
allow the possibility of a candidate for the post to be
nominated or chosen through a contest with rules that are
specifically created by the council. But Terzieva says
President Stoyanov acknowledges that he has no right to
deliberate on the activity of the council because it is an
independent public body.
The media crisis in the Czech Republic sparked mass
street protests numbering in the tens of thousands. Public
anger grew swiftly after striking journalists alleged that a
new public TV director was in effect a political appointee
made by the Czech TV Council, whose nine members themselves
are named by parliament's lower house.
The public outcry over the scandal has brought about the
dissolution of the Czech TV Council and sparked debate on the
need for a new law covering public TV.
A spokeswoman (unnamed) for the Bulgarian president says
the difference between the problems in the Czech Republic and
Bulgaria is obvious. In Bulgaria, she says, the council is
waiting for journalist groups to nominate a qualified
candidate to head National Radio. She says this provision in
Bulgarian law appears to be what Czech public TV journalists
have been demanding from the beginning of their protests.