site.btaBTA's New Website to Have Special Section for Bulgarian Diaspora

Sofia, September 1 (BTA) - "The Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) will have a new website, hopefully by the end of this year, and it will include a separate special section directed at Bulgarians abroad and at Bulgarians back home from their expat fellow countrymen," BTA Director General Kiril Valchev said at a meeting of the National Assembly Committee on Policies for Bulgarians Living Outside Bulgaria on Wednesday.

He was asked by Committee Chair Antoaneta Tsoneva how BTA interacts with Bulgarian media abroad.

Valchev said that in connection with the preparation of the 16th Meeting of Bulgarian Media, which will take place at the Rila Monastery around October 19, 2021, the Agency has surveyed the Bulgarian media around the world, whose number is steadily decreasing, and has so far counted some 50 Bulgarian media in 22 countries. He noted that to qualify as such, the media should meet clear criteria, which should not be too rigorous, and this is an uphill task. "We will try to set up an association of the media worldwide so as to make them more closely linked," Valchev noted.

He said that Bulgarian media around the world raise the matter of their financing and adduce arguments similar to the arguments for financing Bulgarian Sunday schools abroad. "We have excellent experience with the Bulgarian Sunday schools abroad, and we should consider whether a similar mechanism could be used to finance Bulgarian media worldwide, too. BTA could intermediate in the process," Valchev pointed out.

The Bulgarian National Television and the Bulgarian National Radio also presented their broadcasts, programmes and initiatives related to Bulgarians abroad. DS/LG