MOLDPRES AT MEDIA FORUM: national news agencies have decisive role to maintain balance between truthful information and fakes

Sofia, June 2 /MOLDPRES/- MOLDPRES State News Agency represents Moldova at the 18th world meeting of Bulgarian Media, organized by the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA), held on June 1 - 4 in Kazanlak, the city celebrating 120 years since the founding of the Rose Festival, which gathers thousands of guests and tourists from all over the world.

The topic of this year's edition of the meeting is Media and Freedom. Journalists from 33 countries, including representatives of 40 Bulgarian media institutions from 16 countries, gathered today at the event in Kazanlak. The meeting is attended by reporters of agencies from 12 countries, including the Republic of Moldova, which collaborate with BTA. During the forum, BTA is to sign cooperation and news exchange contracts with the heads of six foreign news agencies.

"The mass media should be treated as a school and the state should support it. At BTA, we are working long-term to ensure easy access for all media to the archives, which contain daily news from Bulgaria throughout the agency's 125-year history, because freedom also means choice and learning the lessons of the past. Today, Bulgaria is a free country, because we Bulgarians have the opportunity to make choices in our lives. This is an opportunity that our contemporaries do not have anywhere in the world, and our ancestors did not always have it in history", BTA director-general Kiril Valchev said in a welcome speech to the participants in the event.

Attending the event, deputy president of Bulgaria Iliana Yotova, who is a journalist by profession, said "freedom of expression is the foundation of our human freedom and it is the condition without which democracy is impossible". "And since democracy is a word, which today, like many other words, is on the way to being emptied of content, it is particularly important to think about what it means to be free, to speak and especially what you're speaking to a free audience," Yotova said.

The first world meeting of the Bulgarian press was organized in Sofia on 23-25 May 2005 at the BTA's initiative.

MOLDPRES concluded a collaboration agreement with BTA this March. The document provides for the exchange of experience and the mutual dissemination of news and information products. BTA is a national news agency of Bulgaria set up in 1898. The agency is an independent institution whose purpose is to provide current information to subscribers and citizens of Bulgaria. BTA provides a wide range of services, including: news in various sectors and photographic materials. Also, the institution works in close cooperation with international agencies.

Correspondent: Lilia Grubîi