The process of the graying of the media in our country is deepening. They become depersonalized, it is increasingly difficult to take risks to sound their own way and to defend unattractive positions, uncomfortable and non-conformist.
This is what he said in the audiocast of "Focus“ "This is Bulgaria” Sonia Momchilova, the current chairman of the SEM.
"These are my observations as a consumer of public information primarily, but also as someone who has spent his conscious life in and through the media, and so I am very, very sad. But we should not despair. I think there will inevitably be some kind of reversal. Otherwise, artificial intelligence won't stand a chance, it just won't. There are such prophets, you know, who say that journalism will be one of the professions that society will lose, one of the first," Momchilova added.
According to her, the only way to give some resistance to this activation of artificial intelligence is not to forget that we are human, and not to deprive ourselves of humanity, not to deprive ourselves of empathy, of compassion, of mercy towards the audience , to the listener and the viewer, because the concepts and this recognition are becoming more and more popular.
"Lately, some biological microphone extenders sound like artificial intelligence, looking and listening. And if we do not dare to fight for our human right to receive authentic information, information in which there is an assessment, in which there is bias even, because this is also one of the problems of journalism, then artificial intelligence will come and it will be over. . It will be much easier for all of us", Momchilova also believes.
In her words, the moment she heard there were awards for clean journalism, her first associations were with Kristallnacht and the browning that follows clean journalism.
"And I imagined how somewhere, I hope in the abyss of hell, Goebbels draws generously and rejoices because… No, I cannot imagine how it is possible that the "prisoners of history", as Simeon Radev defines journalists, can be clean. And what does "pure journalism" mean? It's sad, but unfortunately convenient. Convenient and therefore explainable. If we continue this topic, it will become very, very sad, and I also want to leave room for the chance, for there to be some awareness, for there to be some encouragement, for new voices to appear. But recently I heard about some journalistic essay contest by the students at the Faculty of Journalism on the topic "I am like Bernays”.
Can you imagine what we teach children?! We teach them marketability, to be good masters of manipulative skills, and not to be ruthless and uncompromising truth-seeking people who are fully equipped first with moral qualities of a journalist and then – of all the possibilities that modern technologies give us. And let me tell you, I am not grumbling at all and I am not one of those who complain about social networks and media, which allowed and gave the right and opportunity to each of us to be media. I think this is a process that very, very refines quality journalism," added Sonia Momchilova.