site.bta"BTA Is My Life," Ex-Director General Panayot Denev Says on His 80th Birthday

"The Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) is my life," says Panayot Denev, who headed the agency between 1998 and 2002. He celebrates his 80th birthday on Friday.

Born in Sofia on August 22, 1945, he graduated in Bulgarian Philology from the St. Cyril and St. Methodius University of Veliko Tarnovo (North Central Bulgaria) in 1970. In 1970-1971 he worked as a bibliographer at the St. St. Cyril and Methodius National Library in Sofia.

Denev joined BTA on October 1, 1971 after a three-stage competition. His first job at the agency was a reporter at the Home News Desk. He wrote a number of news items, reports, interviews, comments and articles on socio-political and economic topics. He reported important national and international stories, sessions of Parliament and international organizations' congresses. As a special correspondent, he travelled to East Berlin, Minsk and other assignments abroad.

Between 1979 and the end of 1990, he was a reporter and senior reporter at the BTA External News Service and briefly served as the department's deputy editor-in-chief and editor-in-chief in 1990. His beat there included cinema, television, music, theatre and book publishing. For foreign users, he covered the national feature-film and short-film festivals, the World Festivals of Animated Film in Varna, the Golden Chest International TV Festivals in Plovdiv and other major cultural events.

Denev contributed regularly to BTA's Paraleli and LIK weeklies, writing features on the international cultural scene, cultural cooperation, and the spread of Bulgarian culture abroad. He covered the 1981 and 1985 International Film Festivals in Moscow for the magazines as a special correspondent.

Between January 1, 1991 and March 15, 1993, Panayot Denev served as BTA Deputy Director General.

He worked as editor-in-chief of the Demokratsiya daily (1993–1994) and a commentator for the Continent daily (1996–1997).

The 38th National Assembly elected Denev Director General of the Bulgarian News Agency on July 12, 1997. In this capacity, he signed BTA's first agreement on cooperation and news exchange with Macedonia's Media Information Agency (MIA).

In 2000, a Bulgarian News Agency Bill was drafted under his guidance and was proposed to the United Democratic Forces (the majority parliamentary group) which, however, did not table it at the National Assembly. In 2001, the draft legislation again failed to reach Parliament's agenda as it was blocked by the majority of the National Movement for Stability and Upsurge and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms. A Bulgarian News Agency Act was finally passed by the 36th National Assembly on December 1, 2011, when Maxim Minchev was the agency's director general.

In 2002, during Denev's tenure, BTA became the first media outlet in Bulgaria to be certified and implement the ISO 9001:2000 quality management system.

On October 2, 2002, the 39th National Assembly passed a resolution releasing Panayot Denev as BTA director general.

He headed the Information and Analysis Centre of the Union of Democratic Forces (2002–2005) and worked at Net Info.BG's news e-zine www.vesti.bg (2005–2013), where he was editor-in-chief until 2008.

Between 1995 and 2010, he taught News and News Reporting, Information and Public Opinion and Media Information Models at the New Bulgarian University (NBU) Mass Communications Department. In 1995, he founded and headed the NBU Information Centre and was the first editor of the Universitetski Dnevnik newspaper.

In 1984, he co-founded the publications of the Apollonia Festival of Arts in Sozopol (on the Black Sea), editing them and acting as a PR of the annual event until 2017. He organized the Festival's press centre in 1985. He arranged the publication of books of reminiscences, quotations and photos for the 20th and the 30th Apollonia in 2004 and 2014, respectively. Denev also takes credit for a special newspaper covering the literature evenings in Sozopol.

In 1998, he compiled and edited a jubilee publication titled 100 Years On: Bulgarian News Agency.

In 2023, Denev was the driving force behind a set of three books dedicated to BTA's 125th anniversary. He compiled and edited the first volume, Personal Stories, in which current and former staffers of the Agency shared their experiences. He wrote the second volume, History of BTA 1898-2023. He shared in the selection of material and wrote the foreword to the third volume, 125 Years Bulgarian News Agency. The Real News. Stories on File: 1898–2023, which presented each of the 125 years by one major domestic and international story.

Panayot Denev's honours include a Bulgarian-German Forum award for his contribution to the assertion of civil society in Bulgaria and the advancement of Bulgarian-German relations (2000), a Culture Ministry citation and plaquette (2001), and the Golden Quill Award for contribution to Bulgarian culture (2001 and 2008).