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Ivan Petkov

Nikolaos Tsitiridis was born in Athens but grew up in Sofia. He loves his fiancée, friends, children and Bulgaria. He has materialised his dream of becoming a journalist and is currently working in the rapidly growing online media OFFNews.bg. Here is a candid interview on the media, elections, dependencies and journalistic ethics. Only 21 years old, he is a journalist with a promising future, who has been awarded the prize "Young journalist" in the annual ceremony "Valya Krushkina - journalism for people."

What does being a journalist mean to you?

Being a journalist is an extremely important mission that each person could take on a mission that is carried out in front of the public. When you make a wrong move and you make it on purpose, you become like those doctors who take money to prescribe certain medicines, like those police officers who take bribes. Any public position, like being a journalist, doctor, policeman, teacher, is negatively perceived because confidence in these professions has eroded and people believe that they present a perspective that is not theirs. It is constantly stated that journalists lie, isn’t it? A considerable part of society believes that the media present only one viewpoint, namely the paid one.

Journalism is a public profession that is essential to a free society, to a democratic society. When people are free, the media are free too. We see how it is in Bulgaria, the media are not free and society is not free.

How many hours a day do you work and do you manage to deal with the changing and unpredictable rhythm of the profession?

I share the idea that journalism is not a profession but a way of life. Journalism is not a profession in which you sit behind a desk  and which you do automatically, it is not paperwork. Each day begins differently and ends in a totally unexpected way. That is the good thing about this profession - it is so different that it seems you start a new job every day. We are living in fast times, in a new era, it is a profession for people who think fast. For me this is a unique profession!

The important thing in the profession is facts. I present the facts and the reader is free to draw conclusions. To form a free society, everyone should have his or her own opinion, not everyone should accept someone else's opinion.

What do you think of the Balkan media mentality?

In the Balkans, we have a special mentality. As for the media, all are looking for a bargain, as Aleko Konstantinov describes it. There are media that are created just to racketeer not to publish certain materials. There is media racketeering in Bulgaria. There is also political racketeering of the media and we cannot get out of this heinous vicious circle. There are media, newspapers, which are known to be politically dependent and they are still read. By "politically dependent" I mean that their owner is a deputy. For me it is inexplicable why people continue to inform themselves from biased and dependent media after so many things have been written down and spoken out.

Why do people continue to inform themselves from dependent media although they are aware of this fact?

The first thing is that they do not care. People may know much but do nothing about it. Nobody wants to stand up, raise in revolt and do something to change the situation in which he or she is living. The same goes for the elections - people say they are not living well but continue to vote for the same parties.

What is the way out of this passive discontent in which we are living?

An increasing number of young people are making their choice and they have found it - it is terminal two at the airport...

Is it the only possible way out?

When you go outside Bulgaria, you see that things can be different. Again, the example of voting - when the civilized world votes, the results are true, people do not doubt them. While in Bulgaria absolutely every time there are alerts of vote buying and nobody does anything. No prosecutor’s office and no court are doing their jobs effectively. The prosecutor’s office is working on information from the media. The prosecutor’s office is only working if something has happened and has been shown on television. Why is nobody doing their job? But this is the result of the fact that those who can vote according to their conscience are lazy. People have fallen in a state of timelessness en masse, in a state of laziness that borders on apathy, they are thinking only of themselves, but at the trivial routine level.

What is the role of the media to change this apathy? Could they actually assume that role and push for change?

I think they are currently doing so. There are many investigations showing the people who are buying votes. I do not know what more the media could do.  At least several major investigations are underway during each election round. The media cannot go to people’s doors and make them protest or protect their civil rights to vote. The media can show the facts impartially. People do not want to fulfil their civic duty. We are stunted in terms of horror and villainy to the extent of passing by a man who has fallen down in the street, let alone civil consciousness! This brain does not want to think outside the box, we are like chickens in a chalk circle, not daring to go outside it.

Have we come to the point at which the status quo is reproduced?

For me the major problem in the present and in the near future it is the lack of adequate education. In my opinion education in Bulgaria is currently the most unnecessary thing that could exist. It is working worse than the health care system, the prosecutor’s office and the police. In Bulgaria, there is no education. My best friends are teachers and they know it. There are good teachers, but they are lonely birds. The situation is now such that students are copying en masse during the school leaving examinations, schools have lists of students to receive subsidies and salaries and there is no single student in the classrooms. Adequate education should teach people how to think, not what to think. The more educated people there are, the more thinking there will be. Education should be of practical relevance. It is now too far from reality. The good thing is the Internet and the information on it so that not everyone is narrow-minded.

Have social networks seized the function of traditional media?

It depends on the media. Social networks have helped those media that hear the voice and concerns of people in the street. Thus, a young media can quickly create a community of people. They have not helped and have even hurt those media and individuals who do not like to hear the truth. I do not mean that social networks represent Bulgaria but the interaction with readers there is a very big plus.

Is the opposite effect present, namely readers’ trust in everything that is shared on social networks to allow people to be easily manipulated?

The most recent example that I can think of is the attempt to play with the racist card, for example a title like "50 Gypsies beat a mother in Borisova gradina (Boris’ Garden)." This inflames passions before many people realize that the information is false.

In this regard, do we have a good reading culture?

Bulgarian Internet users have an extremely poor reading culture. They do not know how to gather information, where to find it. People have learnt to like different titles, especially if they are written in capital letters, in a scandalous way. They comment on them with enthusiasm and do not check whether what they are commenting on is true. They have not learnt to select their sources of information and filter out the information. This is like being at a buffet and putting everything on the plate, thus making a hotchpotch in the end. Another thought that I like in this direction is that obtaining information from the Internet is like drinking water from a fireplug. I have put it on my desk to be careful with what I write. Readers in turn should be careful with what they read, seek reliable sources and media that have proven to be independent over time.

The problem with uncritical thinking is that when a reader finds different news about the same event he or she accepts the most radical item of it, the one with the most blood in it, without verifying the sources. I have experimented with my friends to see if they realize that when some information is quoted its source must be indicated. People are not at all impressed if such information is present. Since it is written, it is true, even though no source is specified. If readers have no critical thinking, in no way can they distinguish between true and falsified news. They just accept someone else’s point of view that they have read on a website.

How about sources verification on the part of the media?

It is imperative that serious media verify their sources. Publishing information that is not personally verified means inability to develop a good network of correspondents. Few media can afford to have correspondents in small villages and towns.

Often we see that even reputable media and experienced journalists do not cite competitive media or blogs from which they have taken a photo or some information. What is the reason for this?

Recently a photo of my report was reprinted without the consent of the media in which I am working. The information from the report was used in a television broadcast and its host said that she "had read somewhere." We find it very difficult to give someone credit for his or her work. Citing is very difficult. There is the journalistic code of ethics but it is not observed. There is no elementary solidarity in the profession. All journalists know each other more or less, we constantly see and help each other but we do not cite each other afterwards. This is ugly! I dream of the day when local TV stations will begin to use the reports by a local competitor when they are not the first to inform of an event or have missed it instead of letting major events pass as if they have not happened just because they have failed to cover them. This is a bad policy because it deprives readers and viewers of valuable information. The struggle for "a piece of the pie" of the media market is in the foreground, not the function of the media to inform.

You are working in an online media. What is your opinion of digitization and have print media become obsolete?

Print media are dead for me. The youngest generation has never read newspapers. For them they are something obsolete, a thing of the past that is not part of their lifestyle. Such is my opinion of the radio too. I believe that the future belongs not only to digital media but also to media that provide content on demand, i.e. by user request. Content that users will pay for and the media will earn on it. This will not put in the face of the reader information that is not interesting to him or her. The future is in streaming services. For the moment, the media depend on advertising, not only at the financial level, but also at the editorial level. This means that the advertisers determine what the media should publish to some extent.

In this regard, what does being an independent journalist mean to you personally?

I love to tell the truth. Last year I was awarded for having told the truth. Many media would say, "There is no censorship on us, but ..." The biggest problem in journalism is not censorship imposed from above but self-censorship. There is nothing to be afraid of when someone from above is trying to silence your voice, it constantly happens. Media and journalism would not have such an important role in society if they were not trying to bring to light information that is hidden from the people. There is much to be afraid of when a journalist has been forced to use the "correct tone", but correct in terms of a status quo, of someone else's perspective on how to present the facts or simply to replace them. I disagree with this and I would not accept it.

Do you not think that our reality will dash your professional fervour and enthusiasm?

I hope not. I have some concerns, but I would not make such a compromise with myself. I would rather give up being a journalist than becoming a man of self-censorship. I do not want to hand down this to my children.