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“The Woman is”: Viktoria Petrova, bTV News

Viktoria Petrova is the iconic face and anchor of bTV News. She brings viewers closer to the events of the day and creates engaging reports with established interlocutors on a variety of topics. She participated in the special edition of Manager magazine "The Woman Is" where she shared her views on the challenges and prospects for the media, the information environment and key issues in society.

When I started learning this craft, it was like this: you have a notebook and a pen, everything is in your head, the stories of the people you've met or interviewed, the events and processes. Large conferences were a challenge. Hundreds of faces, but you knew a lot about everyone. There was no internet. There were editors who remembered and helped. It was a time when you knew the landline numbers of the departments by heart. We had an assistant - a tape recorder with a cassette. There were typewriters here and there, networked computers, but no internet.

When the internet came along, there were similar thoughts about whether the end of media was coming. Without going into the details, the result is there. There are media, there are journalists. Yes, they've changed a bit, there are more electronic versions, fewer paper publications, radio still exists, television too. The way they are distributed, and some technological conveniences make them faster, more accessible, more interesting, more attractive, but they are there. I'm convinced that in another 6 years there will still be media, even in 2035.

Technology has already had a major impact on the work of journalists. How do you see this development - what challenges and opportunities has it created?

It has made a big difference to the main "pebbles in the journalist's shoe", which is the speed with which a news story is published and the dozens of sources of information you can access at the same time. If a decade or two ago going live from the scene, from a hotspot, was a kind of adventure and effort, today it's routine, we do it daily and repeatedly, i.e. we have the topicality. We broadcast from home and abroad. There were some problems with verifying the information, but there is still a cycle of actuality and updating. In addition, there are more platforms and channels through which content reaches consumers.

Today, misinformation and fake news come from everywhere. In an environment where everyone is fighting for the click, how can quality journalism be defended?

I would like to tell you a story that I used to tell my students. The story is from almost 80 years ago. On a Sunday night, Americans were listening to CBS. Music is playing, which is interrupted, and the radio announcer reports that something is happening on Mars, that clouds of explosions are heading towards Earth, and that a strange object has been found. A beautifully orchestrated scene - the aliens attack - which causes the newspapers to rush to announce that the new and homely medium in every home, the radio, is an irresponsible source of information. Why am I telling this? There was indeed tension at the time over the actions of Nazi Germany. The "coming" of the Martians was the last straw before the glass overflowed. Now we are inundated with such "Martian" news en masse, and wars are a reality. But our immune systems do not react. Why is this? And where should we look for the solution - in news reports, in publishers, in the mix of mass media, ideology and interests, or should we trust scientists? Scientists who clearly say that people tend to believe information that confirms what they want to believe, no matter what the facts are. Social media, fake news outlets only reinforce this unhealthy "religious" feeling.

There is an eternal dilemma in the media: should the media uphold certain standards of language and behaviour and educate the public, or should it surrender completely to commercialism - now we see the latter prevailing. What do you think?

It is good to preserve our language, Bulgarian letters, literary rules and norms. That is the way it should be. If I make exceptions, I do! There are a lot of foreign words that we adopt casually. I think that we should continue to try to find a workable solution so that the viewers understand us, so that we can be close to the young and the old, to specialists and those who do not understand a subject, without changing or complicating the meaning, without underestimating or overestimating the listeners and viewers. When it comes to language, pronunciation, intonation and the presentation of news, I can always learn something from Yuksel Kadriev. He has at least 10 ways of presenting the interview to you, but he always makes you listen to him. With time and our life on air together, we've been able to adapt to the point where we can tell each other everything with a glance, even if it's just by being present or silent, and find out what it means and whether it's what it looks like.

In the context of the above question, what do you think are the key issues that society needs to focus on today?

I think we need to provide a perspective, a horizon, first and foremost on a personal level. Everyone must decide for themselves. Small issues, petty pettiness, resentment and unhealthy jealousy will fall away.

You work actively with students, with young journalists - what are the qualities they need to emphasise and develop to be successful in a rapidly changing media environment?

Some of the students studied film and television, others journalism. Alert kids, always with lots of questions, prepared, following the news, some of them already working. As they all had several social media accounts, they had access to and contact with fake news. Meeting them was stimulating and fun, they were enthusiastic about political and social life. One time it was about the infamous report from the recent past that gained popularity as the 'sit-in'. The lesson was over, and one student said, "Let's ruin the sit-in. I asked him how he knew? He replied that his parents, who were teachers, had gone on strike and used that phrase. I told him the story behind it and he turned around and said: "Oh yes, I remember, I was in first grade“.

Let's imagine you're starting your career over, but with the experience you already have. Are there key decisions along your career path that you would reverse or change to achieve success? And what are the ones you are most proud of?

I am confident that things have worked out in the best possible way. Could it have been any other way? I've made decisions when I've had to and I'm glad I've had the chance to be able to choose. The present is the result of choices we have made. Looking back the only thing I would like to do is thank the people I learned from, who gave me guidance, who gave me my profession and the bread in my hands. These are the people on television and radio, the colleagues I grew up with and those who come to us now with new strengths in the profession. Over the past year, I have been extremely grateful and thankful to long-time bTV News producer Valeria Chankova, who has had the patience to encourage me, to listen to all my ideas, to search together for people and stories in places devastated by bombing, and to wake up in the middle of the night to interview interlocutors from different continents to bring them to life on the air of bTV.