/ world today news/ In recent days, our society and the guild have been watching with astonishment the saga surrounding the broadcast of the broadcast of the interview of Petar Volgin with the ambassador of Russia H.E. Eleonora Mitrofanova. The case made a lot of noise, and the SBZ website followed its entire development in detail. So we will not recall the details – everyone can familiarize themselves with them by reading the posts on our site from the last few days. We offer the special interview of PETER VOLGIN for the SBZ website on the subject.
– Congratulations, Petya! I think that over the years you have collected quite a rich collection of sanctions for your journalistic work – taken off the air, suspension of shows, dismissals… A real champion of the guild. And now you get a completely new, even innovative type of gagging: a ban on broadcasting a specific interview. And that interview is not with anyone, but with a foreign ambassador. At least I have never heard of an interview with an ambassador being banned in our country. So you’re a champion in that too. Did what happened with your interview with the Russian ambassador H.E. surprise you? Eleonora Mitrofanova, or nothing can surprise you anymore in our wonderful new world?
– I admit that I was surprised, I did not imagine that there are people, and here I mean specifically those who sit in the Program Board of the BNR, who will apply such low-intelligence censorship. But then I told myself that I shouldn’t be surprised at all. After all, it is about Russia. And when it comes to this country, people who are appointed to any official positions – whether in the political or media sphere – lose their minds and words with fear. Apparently, they think that they can burn down their offices at the slightest sign of disagreement. For this reason, when the subject is Russia, the first-signal reaction of the first-signal superiors is to remove anything that appears to them to be a threat to their personal well-being.
– Please tell in more detail about this innovation applied to you. Were you invited to the extraordinary meeting of the Program Board in question where the decision about the interview was made? Did they explain to you exactly what you did wrong with this interview, so that you don’t make mistakes in the future?
– Yes, I was invited. I absolutely refused to participate for one very simple reason. I knew that the decision to stop the interview had already been made. That’s what I told the director of the Program Council when she called me: “I have no intention of participating in a therapy session for those who fear Peevski. You treat your fears of him with whatever bans you want, I just won’t take part in your servile spectacle.”
– I read with interest that in chapter 13 of the BNR editorial standards, which you are alleged to have violated, it is written, among other things, that: “BNR journalists must not succumb to any attempt at censorship in their work – direct or indirect. In addition, they should strive to avoid various forms of self-censorship, as this is contrary to independent journalism”. Tell me, is it now possible for you in turn to refer to this production and insist that your interview be broadcast anyway, because stopping it could be taken as an attempt at censorship, and you should not succumb to that?
– I will take this opportunity here to admit that I have indeed violated the basic standard of today’s formal speaking. According to this standard, when it comes to Russia, you are obliged to curse, spit, threaten and generally behave in the most rude and uncultured way possible. Conversely, when it comes to the US, you have to have a completely different demeanor. Then you have to be constantly smiling, not weighing every word, every breath while you speak, so that your interlocutor does not accidentally get hurt. You must have noticed how many of our colleagues follow this “gold standard” one to one. Well, I don’t find such behavior either “golden” or worthy. I’ve never been guided by such manuals for anointing the powerful of the day, and I have no intention of doing so from now on.
– How do you feel as a personal object of branding by actors such as the Ambassador of Ukraine H.E. Olesya Ilashchuk and the chairman of the PG of the DPS Delyan Peevski?
– I’m not the important one in this case. What is more important here, and much more worrying, is that there is clearly no longer any need for any external factor to exercise specific censorship. There is no need for Peevski or Ilashchuk to call the BNR to stop the interview with Eleonora Mitrofanova. Why bother? It was seen that it was enough to express a wish for something to (not) happen and it instantly (not) happen. The vassal mentality of many people in our country has not just disappeared, it has even strengthened. They rush to fulfill the wishes of the powerful of the day before the wishes in question are clearly articulated. That’s the scariest thing.
– As far as I understand, the reason for taking this interview is the cutting of the sculptors from the Monument to the Soviet Army. What do you think of this show?
– In recent weeks, the rulers distinguished themselves with three “achievements” – they destroyed the Monument to the Soviet Army, in the most stupid way they dismantled the Constitution and strengthened the belief that censorship reigns in the major electronic media. These three things are linked by a common denominator, namely the belief of power that it can do as it pleases, that it stands both above the law and above normal human logic. Yes, the Triple Coalition has a comfortable parliamentary majority and apparently this makes it believe that it can play its horse to the maximum extent. However, we know very well that it is rulers who thought they would last forever in power, who disappeared from it shockingly quickly. Shocking to myself.
– The paradox is that the ban on your interview coincided with the adoption in Brussels of the European Act on Media Freedom. What is your opinion about this act and, in principle, about the possibilities to guarantee the rights of journalists, the independence of the media, the freedom of speech, opinions and information?
– It’s not even paradoxical, it’s quite natural. I am highly critical of the media act in question. I am convinced that its adoption will in no way increase media freedom, on the contrary, it will create more conditions for its limitation. When Brussels also starts regulating the media, nothing good awaits us. How has Brussels distinguished itself in the field of media over the past two years? Mainly because it stopped Russian TV channels on the territory of the EU countries. Well, do you think that now all of a sudden the Eurobureaucrats will do something different, something that is in favor of freedom? The question is rhetorical, of course. The aforementioned Act provides for the creation of a supranational CEM, which will be nothing but another supervisory body tasked with fighting “disinformation”. This, in today’s news, means fighting any opinion that differs from official Euro-Atlanticism. And knowing that the European Commissioner who mainly deals with this Act is Vera Yourova, whose Russophobic positions are well known, I have no faith that the media in the EU have anything good waiting for them.
– Is the country we live in democratic? Is the different opinion, the civil position, the critical view respected? What do you think of when you hear terms like propaganda, disinformation, hybrid warfare?
– Today, any different opinion is defined as “propaganda”. This is the surest way to silence the uncomfortable voices. By the way, in the times before 1989, which are increasingly similar to today, official censorship also did not exist. When reports, comments or interviews were taken down in the media of the time, it was explained as compliance with “high socialist standards” and as “preventing malicious Western propaganda”. In practice, there is no difference between the communist censors of the time and the Euro-Atlantic propagandists of today. So if there is something that is certainly absent from today’s Bulgaria, it is respect for pluralism and for different opinions.
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