SEEMO Reaffirms Commitment to Media Freedom in SEE
The South and East Europe Media Organization has issued a statement declaring its continuing struggle for press freedom on the occasion of the World Press Freedom Day, May 3, 2012.
On May 3, the world, Bulgaria included, marked World Press Freedom Day.
The event celebrates the importance of print, broadcast, and internet freedom - freedom being the lack of censorship and corporate influences.
Bulgaria welcomed May 3, 2012 as a "partly free" country, following Freedom House's 2011 global press freedom ranking.
This means that Bulgarians are partly OK with the idea of being served manipulated information.
From an insider's point of view, this means that truth hunters in the country comb through a number of media outlets established as relatively trustworthy and often post their side of the story in the "Opinions" section or communicate it thorough some other channel to the editorial board.
The ones who do not wish to spend time digging for information and questioning statements simply opt for entertainment.
The latter do not believe that information, manipulated or not, can get them anywhere.
Coincidentally, they also do not believe voting can get them anywhere because "they're all crooks out there."
In other words, they interpret democracy as the obligation to pay taxes and "bear the cross of being a Bulgarian"
They will not have any of the "right to representation" stories.
In this line of thought, media freedom is important because it brings freedom through the media.
The people who have not given up their civic consciousness, be they Bulgarian or of whatever nationality, will insist on being told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, in a convenient and accessible manner.
The rest, the ones who prefer to go civic-commitments-free, do not deserve media freedom, or probably any other sort of freedom, because they have already agreed to serve and obey without much question.
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