An Autocrat’s Guide to Destroying Local Media, Part 2

The Europeans | European news, politics and culture

Katy Lee and Dominic Kraemer

Society & Culture, News

4.8 • 274 Ratings

🗓️ 11 December 2023

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In Part 1, you learned how illiberal regimes have used the political tools at their disposal – and their rich friends – to turn the media outlets of democratic European countries into propaganda machines. In Part 2 we’re exploring the legal tools needed to complete the job and talking to local journalists who found themselves on the receiving end of these takeovers. Finally, we’re asking: how can you stop a wannabe autocrat doing this in *your* country? This series was funded by Journalism Fund Europe, the Allianz Foundation, and supporters of The Europeans. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy our podcast and would like to help us keep making it, we'd love it if you'd consider chipping in a few bucks a month at ⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/europeanspodcast⁠⁠⁠ (many currencies are available). You can also help new listeners find the show by ⁠⁠⁠leaving us a review⁠⁠⁠ or giving us five stars on Spotify. Credits Reporters: Viktória Serdült, Dimitar Ganev and Wojciech Oleksiak Writers: Wojciech Oleksiak and Dimitar Ganev Production, scoring, sound design and mixing: Wojciech Oleksiak Editors: Adam Zulawski and Katy Lee Editorial support: Katz Laszlo and Dominic Kraemer Director of recording sessions: Dominic Kraemer Artwork: RTiiiKA Thanks for talking to us: Vesislava Antonova, Ervin Gűth, Antal Józing, Zuzanna Nowicka, Venelina Popova, Anna Wójcik, Spas Spassov, Marek Twaróg, Ágnes Urbán, and Cezary Węgliński.⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠ | Bluesky | ⁠⁠Twitter | [email protected]

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi Vojek. Hi, Dominic. Hi, Vojek.
0:24.2	Hi, Dominic.
0:25.2	How's it going over there?
0:26.7	Good. It's very snowy.
0:28.1	I've been in a snowy forest for the last three days, so I'm well rested and energized.
0:32.4	Wow, that sounds delightful and sounds like you're in a perfect position to dive into the second and final part
0:39.8	of an autocrats guide to destroying local media. What have you got in store for us today,
0:45.4	Vojek? Today we're zooming in on the legal aspect of capturing local media and later on
0:51.9	we'll be hearing from some local journalists who had the personal
0:55.7	experience of when autocratic regimes came knocking on their newsroom doors. But before we
1:02.8	plunge into all that, it's time for a quiz. I love a quiz. I wasn't expecting this. Okay, hit me.
1:12.0	Alrighty. So since we covered three countries in part one, Bulgaria, Hungary and Poland,
1:18.8	I've got three questions, one for each. Ready for the challenge?
1:23.4	Ready as I'll ever be. Fantastic. Question one.
1:32.8	In part one, our friend and reporter, Dimit Arganev, told us about Delian Pejewski,
1:38.6	a notorious Bulgarian oligarch with an enormous estate, including huge media ownership.
1:45.8	Now, according to Reporters Without Borders, what percentage of the print media does he own?
1:54.4	Is it, A, around 30%, B, approximately 55% or C, 80%. Oh, I'm going to go big and assume it's really terrible and that he owns 80% of all the print media in Bulgaria, but I can't believe that. Surely not.
2:08.4	And that is unfortunately the right answer. What's even worse, that is the official number that the reporters without borders, a very respectable
2:18.1	organization could put in the report. Reportedly, he owns much more, and not only in print media,
2:23.9	but also in digital media, television news, radio.
2:28.4	Are you ready for question two?
	...

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