site.btaLIK Magazine Issue Dedicated to 20 World Meetings of Bulgarian Media Available Online

The issue of LIK magazine dedicated to the 20 World Meetings of Bulgarian Media is available online. This year marked the 20th anniversary of the initiative organized by the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). The event brought together Bulgarian journalists from 25 countries on May 24 and 25 in Sofia, the St Cyril and St Methodius Klisura Monastery, and the town of Varshets (Northwestern Bulgaria).

The first World Meeting of Bulgarian Media took place in Sofia from May 23 to 25, 2005, under the theme “Bulgarian Media and Bulgaria’s European Responsibilities.” It gathered journalists from 24 countries, representing 45 media outlets from Bulgaria and 53 Bulgarian-language media abroad.

Thе issue features a thematic chronology recounting the development of the World Meetings over the past two decades.

In the introduction, BTA Director General Kiril Valchev wrote: “The holding of 20 World Meetings of Bulgarian Media is an occasion for reflection. This issue is dedicated to the journey starting with the first meeting initiated by the late long-time BTA Director General Maxim Minchev, who organized fifteen of these events”. Valchev noted that the future development of the meetings should build on the accumulated experience and adapt to the changing media landscape. According to him, a possible continuation is for the World Meetings of Bulgarian Media to evolve into World Meetings Bulgaria in the Media, which would be held in seven modules.

“The first module would remain the meeting of Bulgarian media worldwide. The second would be a discussion about the national media in Bulgaria. The third, about the regional media in Bulgaria, which have nearly disappeared. The fourth, about Bulgarian media abroad in local languages, which until now have not been the focus of our attention. The fifth, about participants from foreign media who write and speak about Bulgaria, modeled after the international journalists’ meetings in Kazanlak during the Rose Festival, the last of which, according to BTA's archives, took place in 1992. BTA can further develop its experience from previous invitations for knowledge exchange with journalists from partner national news agencies of other countries. The sixth, about translators from the Bulgarian language worldwide, thus placing alongside the periodically published media the first media, the book. The seventh, for presenting new media, new technologies (such as the topical artificial intelligence, for example), and new platforms for distributing media content,” Valchev wrote.

In his article, LIK Editor-in-Chief Georgi Lozanov poses the question: “Will the media save the world?”. Lozanov notes that even Minchev, the visionary behind the meetings, could not have foreseen the scale they would reach. “Before the meetings, journalists from about 100 Bulgarian-language media abroad rarely knew of each other’s existence, despite their shared national and professional identity. The initial motivation for the meetings was mutual curiosity and the exchange of contacts, publications, memories, and sympathies,” Lozanov also wrote.

Since January 2024, LIK magazine is freely accessible. All issues since its 2022 relaunch can be downloaded in electronic format from the BTA website. The issue dedicated to 20 World Meetings of Bulgarian Media in Bulgarian language is available at: https://www.bta.bg/bg/lik-magazine/55.