Over the past two years, Bulgaria has climbed the rankings for freedom of speech according to the organization “Reporters Without Borders.” Despite this progress, this freedom remains fragile and unstable, as SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) lawsuits continue against individual investigative journalists and media outlets. The state exerts significant control over advertising revenues, from which media organizations, except those publicly funded, are heavily dependent. Additionally, there is a lack of transparency regarding the distribution of funding from the state budget and European programs, as noted in the organization’s report.
But the problems with freedom of speech and the attempts by the authorities to control the media do not end there.
A significant number of media outlets, especially those outside the capital, voluntarily relinquish their core function—to act as a check on power and illuminate corruption, theft, and the misuse of public funds.
This avoidance of controversy and conflict allows them to solicit money from local authorities under the guise of contracts for informational coverage of municipal activities.
In Stara Zagora, there are around 15 websites registered by various legal entities, typically managed by just one or two individuals. These outlets usually lack original news, reports, analyses, and commentary, with investigations being out of the question. Their content consists mainly of press releases from the municipality, regional government, police, and other institutions, often published without editorial intervention and containing spelling errors.
Press conferences are reported on according to the interests of each media outlet, and during election campaigns, coverage is provided exclusively in exchange for contracts with the respective parties. The implementation of numerous projects worth hundreds of millions in the municipality, as well as the awarding of public contracts for these projects, typically goes unnoticed by these websites. However, all of them have contracts with the municipality of Stara Zagora, without clarity on the objective criteria used by the mayor to determine funding amounts. These contracts are negotiated and executed without the approval of the municipal council, even though the council is responsible for approving the municipal budget. The funds for these contracts are classified as current expenditures, which are accepted under the revenue and expenditure paragraphs, functions, and activities and are paid from the municipal budget account.
This effectively means that the funding remains hidden both from municipal councilors and from citizens, whose taxes and fees primarily contribute to the revenue side of the budget. And despite the obligation for media outlets to declare to the state all funds received during the year, their financing remains opaque to the public.
Therefore, this year “For the Truth” requested information under the Access to Public Information Act regarding the contracts signed by Mayor Zivko Todorov with media outlets for the period of 2023-2024.
From the information received (at the end of the text), it is evident that the amounts in the contracts for a year vary between 4,000 and 21,000 leva. There are also contracts for filming events from the municipality’s annual cultural calendar or holidays such as March 3 or May 24, as well as for publishing special issues of newspapers, specifically “National Business Mail.” We will refrain from commenting on the sums in these contracts out of professional ethics, leaving it to each individual to review them and form their own opinion without bias.
However, we cannot ignore the fact that in this manner, Mayor Zivko Todorov has ensured media comfort throughout all 12 years of his tenure, which is certainly not his exclusive practice.
According to the municipality’s chief financial officer, Tsanka Ganeva, the mayor likely does not care what some minor media outlet writes about him. Rather, Zivko Todorov’s favorable disposition towards the media stems from his inability to refuse anyone. Nevertheless, citizens remember that the mayor of Stara Zagora was quite troubled by a critical Facebook post about him, containing unacceptable qualifications, and even publicly threatened to file a lawsuit against its author. This indicates that he is not indifferent to how his image and management style are portrayed in the media.
Tsanka Ganeva asserted two years ago, when “For the Truth” requested information regarding media contracts for 2019-2020 under the Access to Public Information Act, that there is no legal requirement for these to be executed only with the approval of the municipal council. However, even if not explicitly prohibited by law, such a dispersion of public resources is not ethical. Therefore, we sought the opinions of two opposition councilors, understandably not from GERB.
Magdalena Ovcharova, a lawyer from the “We Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria” group and a member of the permanent commission for legality and public order, commented that even if there is a legal possibility for the mayor to unilaterally manage budget funds, contracts with the media should go through the Municipal Council. This is vital as budgetary funds are used to shape public opinion.
Financial advisor Svetoslav Kolev, a first-term councilor from the local coalition “Agricultural People’s Union,” was more reserved and less categorical in his assessment of whether media contracts should be approved by the Municipal Council. As the deputy chairperson of the budget committee, he expressed the opinion that at the very least, these contracts should be coordinated with the councilors.
“It is important not who is spending the funds, but whether there is transparency and criteria for evaluating these media,” he commented to “For the Truth.” Reading that a baby lion or pony has been born at the zoo is one thing, but encountering serious analyses of economic, social, or other issues facing the municipality, or ones that present trends and perspectives for its development decades ahead, is quite another. According to the financial advisor, this depends on the capacity of the respective media and the quality of the journalists working in it. He also distinguishes whether the contract is for promoting a campaign of the municipality or a specific agreement related to EU operational programs, or if it pertains to annual coverage of the administration’s and the mayor’s team’s activities.
Therefore, there should be clear criteria, transparency, and public trust that the funds for the media are not a squandering of public resources.
This is also the reason for proposing a discussion in the local parliament on this topic. It is not complicated, nor will it likely be too costly for the mayor to commission a study on which media have the capacity to influence public opinion, what their activity is by domain, and what citizens’ trust in them is. If Mayor Zivko Todorov accepts this idea, it is clear that the majority formed around the GERB group will support it, while the opposition will be firmly in favor.
Otherwise, he will reinforce the belief among his constituents that he is using public funds to buy his image and media comfort. Then he will have no arguments to justify the 398,000 leva that the municipality has paid and will continue to pay for 2023-2024. While this amount is indeed less than the 650,000 leva owed under the contracts with the media for 2019-2020, another comparison can be made with the subsidies that the municipality provides to state cultural institutions in the city—such as the opera, dramatic theater, and puppet theater—for activities like the Festival of Opera and Ballet Arts, for instance.
In the budget for 2024, the allocated subsidy for the opera is 160,000 leva, for the dramatic theater it is 150,000 leva, and for the puppet theater, it is 170,000 leva.
This comparison gives the residents of Stara Zagora the right to be critical of their mayor’s generosity towards the media, some of which they have likely never even heard of.
