Good and bad ambassadors, good and bad interviews
Liberal censorship modeled after the West becomes more stringent in Bulgaria
Let's briefly talk about censorship. Not the one from 'old times' before 1989, but censorship of a new kind, which is being eagerly embraced in the former Eastern Bloc countries and is being modeled after the West.
Those who have been paying close attention to my journalistic output may have noticed that I have been working with Bulgarian National Radio (BNR) for over ten years. I can't remember when my first reports from Poland aired on Horizont, Bulgaria's largest and most important radio station. Probably in 2010. I've never been a journalistic celebrity and have never aspired to be one, but that doesn't mean I haven't contributed some important correspondence, interviews, and commentary on the situation in Poland (however moderately interested the Bulgarian public may be in it). In recent years, particularly since 2015, when I became seriously involved in establishing my own publishing house and developing an independent media business, as well as the independent portal baricada.org, I have been invited to discuss the situation on Bulgarian National Radio on an extremely infrequent basis, but I have remained present and feel connected to the medium. Not only because of some autobiographical threads, but also because, in the midst of Bulgaria's appalling decline in journalism and the total plowing of the media landscape by various oligarchic groups, BNR has remained perhaps the only haven of decency, with relatively high debate standards, freedom of speech, and a clearly delineated pluralism of opinion. One could argue that if Bulgaria's God-forsaken 'democracy' has accomplished anything, it is only Bulgarian National Radio.
It makes me very sad that I have to criticize an act of obvious censorship at BNR today. Here's what happened and why I'm writing about it with open rage.
Four days ago, on December 15, an interview that had been announced, approved, and scheduled for Saturday, December 16, elicited violent reactions from a certain foreign embassy and a certain prominent Bulgarian politician widely suspected of having close ties with the country's most powerful criminal organizations.
To prevent the interview from being broadcast, both the politician and the embassy demanded action and as a result the material was investigated immediately by all possible regulatory bodies, ethics committees, and consiliums on good, evil, and everything. The message was reinforced further when the aforementioned politician went on an obtuse rant about "endangered national interest."
As we all know, some wishes are sometimes commands for some people. This is exactly what has occurred. In the early hours of December 16, the Bulgarian National Radio Program Council held an extraordinary meeting. The convention decided to forbid the broadcast of the interview by a vote of 16 in favor, 2 against, and 1 abstention (15 in favor and 1 against, per alternative reports). According to the official explanation, the interviewer failed to exercise due diligence and journalistic integrity. Furthermore, the author of the interview and his team were barred from disclosing the material in any form.
The interviewer happens to be someone I know personally; his name is Petar Volgin, and he has been one of the most influential figures in Bulgarian journalism for the past two decades. He has written texts, interviews, books, and reports, and he has been a presenter on Bulgarian National Radio for many years. I know the man personally and am familiar with his accomplishments; I find it difficult to believe that he conducted the interview in an unprofessional manner.
But, you might be wondering, with whom was this interview? What character, it turns out, could have suddenly mobilized people who were, as it turns out, rightly suspected of being the most powerful decision-makers in the Republic of Bulgaria?
Some of you have undoubtedly guessed. The interview was conducted with Eleonora Mitrofanova, the Russian Federation's ambassador in Bulgaria. The material was proposed for broadcast in the middle of the previous week, and the inspiration (as well as the main topic) was the ongoing illegal demolition of the Red Army monument in the center of Bulgaria's capital. The interview passed through the entire editorial process with no issues. It had been pre-recorded and had been available for days on BNR's internal network.
The aforementioned extremely harsh reactions erupted into public space in the late afternoon of December 15. They have two sources. One is Olesya Ilashchuk, the Ukrainian ambassador in Sofia. She is best known for the fact that prior to taking over this position, she had no contact with diplomacy and was not involved in the public case at all. On the contrary, she focused her professional attention as a sexologist (sic!) on rather intimate issues. She probably didn't even get proper training, because as soon as she got the job in a new industry, she didn't realize that a diplomat's Instagram account must be different from the one a sex-influencer creates for herself. She addressed the Bulgarian nation while dressed in what appeared to be a bathrobe (sic!). Later, she was told to change into a more appropriate outfit and re-shoot the video.
And the second enforcer turned out to be Delyan Pevski, a media oligarch suspected of working with Bulgaria's most powerful mafia structures, a close associate of former Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, and, as it turns out, one of the front-runners for the American embassy team in Sofia.
On Friday evening, Petyr Volgin was informed by a colleague that the BNR Program Council would meet the following day, first thing in the morning, in an emergency meeting. According to Volgin, at that meeting, a vote was to be taken on withholding publication of the Mitrofanova interview.
The board of the BNR issued a statement on Saturday, December 16, stating, among other things, that "the issue of the unaired interview with Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation, Mrs. Eleonora Mitrofanova, should not be used for political purposes." According to the head office, the decision to withhold publication "was taken in accordance with the accepted principles of editorial activity at BNR and professional standards, in accordance with the public interest, the legal framework, and the Code of Ethics of Bulgarian media." It then goes on to list the articles and points of the Code of Ethics as well as the editorial standards of Bulgarian State Radio that the Program Council believes were violated in the aforementioned interview.
Given that any publicizing of the interview was prohibited, determining whether Volgin committed such unprofessionalism is difficult. I, along with the majority of the Bulgarian public, believe Volgin when he says that he realized the material in accordance with all professional and ethical standards. Furthermore, an interview with Elena Poptodorova (former Bulgarian ambassador to the United States, an obsessively pro-American politician with ties to the Bulgarian Socialist Party) was scheduled on the same day. The sexologist-diplomat was also approached for an interview, but she never responded.
The situation became increasingly scandalous, with journalists, politicians, and members of the public accusing the BNR of censorship. Angry, the management of Bulgarian State Radio issued another statement in which it slammed everyone who did not applaud it. It states, among other things, that "we consider the allegations of censorship to be unacceptable [...] BNR, as a public broadcaster, strictly adheres to the principles of free speech, objectivity and independence of media content, and pluralism of viewpoints, while upholding the highest professional and ethical standards."
I completely agree that BNR has earned a reputation as Bulgaria's most democratic, pluralistic, and free media outlet over the years. And, while accusations of unjust censorship are unsettling for its staff and management, how else can this situation be interpreted? After all, this is a textbook example of internal and external political pressure leading to the censorship and destruction of Bulgaria's most important mass media outlet.
A further demonstration of the scandal's brazenness and hypocrisy was the recent, trouble-free interview that the U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria granted to the Darik radio station, another well-known channel. I don't listen to this radio station very often, despite having given several interviews there. So I had no idea about this interview until I heard about it from a popular Bulgarian YouTuber, Rational Resistance. He explained that he discovered this interview and that not only was the ambassador free to say whatever he wanted, but he was also surrounded by his most devoted entourage of Bulgarian compradors. He was there with former Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev, current Sofia Mayor Vasil Terziev, and Finance Minister Asen Vasilev. When it comes to 'Euro-Atlantic values' (whatever that is), they are all obsessively pro-American and act like religious preachers. The American diplomat, of course, praised Bulgaria's membership in NATO and the EU and didn't say much else.
Why then is the Russian ambassador not permitted to speak freely on Bulgarian radio while the U.S. ambassador is? This is a straightforward rhetorical question.
And now for the obvious answer. The liberal-centrist censorship gradually imposed on us by the West and its local proponents disguised as luminaries of so-called civic society (whatever that means), activists who preach the religion of inclusion, integration, diversity, human rights, democracy, and other similar terms that have undergone total inflation in meaning, is now reaching new heights.
All of the mindless but emotionally charged yelling about democracy, etc., is clearly aimed at a new authoritarianism, far more subtle than the one we know from recent history but far more effective. This unequivocal act of censorship is yet another indication of the path we have taken: the path of political, social, and cultural regression, as well as general civilizational decline.