EKIP– Expert Club for Economics and Politics A Different Opinion
In just a few days, the official election campaign will begin. Smiling and presentable party members will pour out promises of a bright future, solutions to every problem, a new child for every grandmother and… media vouchers. We decided to write a few lines about them, provoked by an incident on Facebook that we became unwitting witnesses to.
Yesterday (22.02) in the sitewww.actualno.coma critical article appears about the candidate-MP Svetlyo Vitkov and his unexpected political move to join the election campaign as a coalition partner of the establishment, which until recently was strongly opposed – the Reformist Bloc (2). Without commenting on the merits of the article, we will only share that it is notNotWe agree neither with the position expressed therein nor with the qualifications within. The interesting thing here is something else entirely.
According to a Facebook story by a person posing as an employee of WebGround (the owner of the media), an interesting scene unfolded after the article was published. The hero of the publication, Svetlyo Vitkov, called the editorial office and somehow managed to force the editorial team of actualno.com to take it down. We have no way of confirming whether his words are true, but it is a fact that the article appeared on the site and then…disappeared. ( Cached copy of the text, special greetings to those who know that nothing disappears from the Internet)
There have been such cases before. Mocking the great and unique, the only leader of everything earthly and spiritual (three popes have combed his hair after all) Boyko Borisov cost the cartoonist Chavdar Nikolov his job at Nova Television, his works were removed from all sites owned by the media group, and at one wonderful moment in the near future, the same one also got accused of… inciting discrimination.
Who can stand the mainstream media?
Of course, there are many more examples. But now let's focus on the reasons. They are the same ones that make us at the bottom of the media freedom rankings and they are nothing complicated or impossible to imagine. In the digital age, in which every hipster with a camera can become his own media, experts have given up and created their own blogs, advertising margins are falling, advertisers' interest in websites and television stations that no one watches has decreased... the crutch of mainstream journalism remains the good old parties.
Yes, the happiest people around the elections are the media bosses and the owners of printing houses (those who make the posters, brochures, etc.). Every publication for a politician is generously paid, every participation in a commentary show - too. A minute of airtime on major national televisions costs about 5,000 leva, a publication on www.actualno.com - significantly less, but for the media it is a fortune. Imagine what happens in small provincial newspapers and websites. One election can provide you with funds sufficient for up to four years. Not to mention that when one of all these suitors decides to ascend to power, whoever listened during the campaign will feed themselves best with advertising budgets for "promoting..." meaningless European projects.
Media vouchers
Each of the above-listed party formations – Reformist Bloc, Glas Naroden and GERB – receives a generous party subsidy, which it can use in the campaign through official channels. Naturally, the black boxes can always finance other not-so-correct PR practices such as trolls, fake news, Kostinbrod, etc. Even parties without subsidies will finance their participation in the media with taxpayer money. The media vouchers that have already become famous will be used either for their intended purpose (for media participation) or for classic absorption (the hashtag-bg affair). It doesn’t matter, the result will be the same – paid journalism.
Everything said so far aims to awaken that sector of vigilance and suspicion in your brain that perhaps 100% of what you read, see, hear in the mainstream media in the next month has been paid for by a party uncle/aunt who aims for more power over your money, your future, your lives. Mainstream journalism has long ceased to be what it once was in the world… and never in Bulgaria. Get the idea of pluralism of opinions, different points of view, the interest of truth out of your head when it comes to elections and electoral marketing.
The TEAM and its authors will not receive a single lev of party or state-party money to cover these elections. We will use all our criticality (and you all know that "all our criticality" is quite a large amount) to read between the lines, listen carefully to the promises, analyze the TV appearances in detail, in order to present you with the most serious and adequate assessment of what is happening.
