Seminar on the impact of gambling funding on journalism and society

Georgi Markov, BNR, 28 March 2024

Interview by Georgi Markov with Associate Professor Zhana Popova from Sofia University and Vladimir Mitev from the Romanian section of Radio Bulgaria about the seminar they organized on the topic “The situation of press and investigative journalism – The impact of gambling financing on journalism and society”, which is part of the project “Pop culture, pop politics: the digital twist” of the Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication at Sofia University. It took place on 28 March 2024 in Sofia.

Georgi Markov is interested in the reasons for organising this seminar, the impact of media financing and gambling advertising on different social groups, the Romanian experience on the seminar topics and the expected effects of the seminar according to the organisers. 

The Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication at St. Kliment Ohridski University in Sofia is hosting another seminar within the project “Pop culture, pop politics: the digital twist”. And the topic of the discussion, which started a few minutes ago, is “The state of the press and investigative journalism – The impact of gambling funding on journalism and society”. About the expectations from the discussion and the purpose of the talks we will talk in the next minutes in “Something More” with lecturer at the Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication, associate professor Jana Popova and colleague from the Romanian editorial office of Radio Bulgaria and creator of the Bulgarian-Romanian news website “Bridge of Friendship” Vladimir Mitev. They are also the organisers of today’s event. Hello! Let’s start our conversation with the question – what prompted you to choose this theme for today’s seminar?

Vladimir Mitev: If I start, let us first say that the idea was born at the end of last year when there was a scandal in the Romanian media space related to the fact that one of the leading newspapers in the country with a pretty good image, including investigative stories – Libertatea, was hit in the sense that a important part of its staff was fired. This happened because there was a conflict: the journalists felt that there was an attempt by the advertisers, who are gambling companies, to influence the stories and there was a conflict with the management. We have to say something more concrete concerning Gazeta Sporturilor, a media organ which is also part of the conglomerate owned by the Swiss company Ringier, like Libertatea, but in the case of Gazeta Sporturilor there is a partly Bulgarian management, in the sense that there is an ownership which is linked to a Bulgarian businessman.

Associate Professor Popova, is it important to talk about this topic?

Zhana Popova: Not only is it important, but it becomes indicative, including through our event, what media is paying attention to this issue. Because when journalists are pressured, not in a very direct way, but by their own measures, in which they can press for journalism about gambling and gambling addiction, a very important social problem that is talked about on your radio, then we understand that there is actually a problem. It is not possible that gambling and addictive drugs are the most important topics in Bulgarian TV commercials. This simply cannot continue. There is a big problem, we complain all the time that viewers and listeners, readers run away from the media, but it is actually important to see what we as journalists do to keep them and what media owners do to keep them. Gambling is something that is very important to some people. Nobody denies that it’s part of the fun. The point is to have a measure of where the rampant advertising is, especially with young people on the internet.

When we proposed to organise the seminar, many people told us – but we have already talked about this topic, there have been many meetings at the Council on Electronic Media. Here, advertising has been changed and they say it’s up to everyone to decide, in general – they say the verb in this ugly way. But in fact there are groups – these are young people who cannot protect themselves, and this is where our insistence should be on self-regulation, not regulation. Gambling companies must be responsible to young people, otherwise the whole advertising market suffers. Young people say – we activate our social media blockers and don’t see the other ads. The worst thing is that they don’t see the media that way either.

And so we come to the question of whether we can even talk about the impact of these ads on journalism and society itself, and whether we can say, apart from young people, another category of people, are victims of this impact, if of course they are?

If we talk about journalists and we look at the Romanian case, which to some extent also provoked this seminar, I think that in Romania there is perhaps a slightly more developed culture in which journalists do not tolerate so much the interference of business or political interests. There is a more developed investigative journalism in Romania, so I think journalists probably have an attitude and would suffer if big money were to interfere so much in editorial policy.

Doctor Popova?

Yes, that’s why I invited the lawyer Silvia Petkova, who deals exactly with the overflow of addictions, because people suffering from drug addiction have to find money from somewhere and therefore they resort either to quick loans, which is another very important topic for the media, and on the other hand to gambling, because it’s about making quick money. The question here is how to find the measure in our media. And if we look at the investigative journalism TV topics, because there is strong investigative journalism in Bulgaria – we cannot say that there is not, but if we look at the topics, gambling is almost absent there. It is very rare that such investigations are carried out and that is why I think it is important to listen to the two Romanian journalists I have invited this evening, because in Romania too there is interference in the work of journalists, both with so-called SLAPP cases and with political interference. Vladi Mitev will tell us a lot about this. But what journalists are doing is separating the advertising department and the journalism department, so to speak. That is, not to mix these two areas, not to have a dependency between them.

And speaking of the Romanian experience, let Vladi Mitev share with us, now, before the discussion, what is the Romanian experience!

Our listeners had the opportunity to learn more about the Libertatea case last year on the Hristo Botev programme and these interviews are on the website and can be consulted. I can say that what happened then caused a very big discussion in Romanian society, because Libertatea had a pretty good image. I can point out, among other things, that Cătălin Tolontan, who is the main figure there, is probably known to our listeners from the film Colectiv, a film about Romanian investigative journalism that was nominated for an Oscar. So this damage that has been done to Libertatea as a result of this case has also, I think, hit Romanian society itself. What I noticed as a reaction also afterwards was that there were some legislative initiatives. In the sense, for example, of somewhat increasing the taxation of this business. And, on the other hand, there have been newsrooms – I can mention G4 Media, one of the most important media in Romania, which has declared that it does not take money from gambling companies, and there have been calls for this to become a kind of informal but actually serious standard in the Romanian media – to declare that the money that finances the media has, let’s say, a good origin.

Mr Mitev and Dr Popova, do you expect this event of yours to give rise to a wider public, why not institutional, discussion at a later stage so that this long-awaited change in media gambling advertising can take place?

Personally, I would expect us journalists to first say very clearly that this is the last day – not the beginning, but the last day – that we will be subject to the terms and conditions of advertisers, however powerful they may be as gambling advertisers. This is the first.

The second thing I expect is in terms of all the regulators – because we see holes all the time in the agency that is supposed to regulate this whole process. We’ve seen all the stories with the National Lottery and other games that are now gone. This agency should step forward and, on the other hand, the gambling advertisers should take responsibility themselves by giving up this advertising at all costs. This is impossible. There must be hours, there must be places on the Internet. It is not just about electronic media, but also about places on the Internet where people can go without being attacked, so to speak, by this advertising that is being broadcast. You get to Sofia airport and things start. You can see it next to the sports field that is supposedly promised so that we can send our children there to do sports, so that they can become good sportsmen. There is no sports news without the advertisement of an advertiser who seems to own the rights to the football championships in Bulgaria. This is a very big problem, because we can do sport without being addicted to gambling.

My personal expectations are a little more towards Romania, in the sense that the experience that is happening there could be very useful for us. But I think it is also important that it is seen from Romania that there are different attitudes in Bulgarian society towards the problems that sometimes arise when Bulgarians are present in Romania.

Thank you for your time to Horizon listeners and for the programme. Our interlocutors were also Professor Jana Popova, professor at the Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication of St. Kliment Ohridski University in Sofia and Vladimir Mitev, journalist at the Romanian editorial office of Radio Bulgaria. We spoke to them in the past minutes about the discussion that has already started today “On the state of the press and investigative journalism – the impact of gambling financing on journalism and society”. Thanks again and good luck at the forum!

Photo: The poster of the project (source: Faculty of Journalism and Mass-Communication, BNR)

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