DIANET.org - Bulgaria: Minority rights on the 7th Annual Media Coalition agenda

As part of the 7th annual meeting of the Bulgarian Media Coalition in July, the Inter-Ethnic Initiative For Human Rights Foundation, a Coalition member, held a debate on Media in a multicultural society: regional risks and European responsibilities. The 3-day debate attracted a great deal of attention and was attended by Bulgarian journalists from leading national and regional media and by Bulgarian and foreign media experts. It was the first time that the role of the media in promoting tolerance in society with regard to ethnocultural diversity and minority rights had appeared on the agenda of this professional forum.

During the meeting, the Bulgarian edition of the media resource pack Achieving Media Responsibility In Multicultural Societies was presented, a publication that had resulted from the 2005 international media conference hosted by the IEI foundation under the Minority Rights In Practice programme. The report examines key issues related to international legal standards regulating expression of opinion, the right to personal dignity and protection against discrimination and analyses state policies and media practices in various European countries to encourage ethnocultural pluralism in the media. The report also contains a framework of professional principles for the ethical coverage of such issues and mechanisms for interaction between media and non-governmental organizations.

The discussion format used was greatly appreciated. Moderators were drawn from minority communities and steered discussions within the framework of their personal experiences and the traumas, the damage that negative labelling of their communities by the media provokes and how their strategies for survival are affected. Discussions underlined the choice for journalists: whether to participate in traumatizing the fate of thousands of persons unknown to them, or to improve their own knowledge of the subject. Such issues inevitably outlined the important role of decision makers in formulating media policies and the roles of professional alliances and media regulatory authorities. The forum provided an opportunity to table the issue of the highly unsatisfactory representation of minorities in the mainstream Bulgarian print and broadcast media, including publicly owned media. This forum also presented a 2006 survey entitled The Presence Of Minorities In The Broadcast Media, which showed that minorities and their problems are insufficiently represented on leading broadcast programmes and almost always negatively reported (especially in relation to the Roma).

Journalists and media experts were surprisingly positive about the forum and there was consensus among participants that:

Minorities and the media should be on the agenda of all annual Coalition meetings;
Small-scale meetings should be held to promote and examine multiculturalism and tolerance through the media;
Discussions should be held with media managements, regulatory and self-regulatory bodies to discuss media policies on ethnic and religious tolerance;
Relevant parliamentary commissions should be provided with proposals for amendments to media legislation to guarantee minority representation in the media and ensure ethnocultural pluralism;
The IEI foundation and others should provide a database of contacts among minority community representatives in ethnically mixed regions and organize trips for journalists to ethnically mixed regions to provide direct contact with minority communities;
The IEI media resource pack provides a highly appropriate resource that could be widely used.