Background

The Elena Tribune was established in 1959. For a short time, the newspaper was renamed to The Balkan Tribune but later assumed its original name. The newspaper developed further the local journalistic tradition that was initiated by Panayot Kurshovski and The Elena Protection, the newspaper he published from 1926 to 1941.

Practice

The newspaper is published by Elenski Balkan Ltd., a limited-liability company in which the Municipality has a 52% stake. It is a bi-weekly edition, with a circulation of 1,500 - 2,000. It is delivered most to subscribers but a small share of the circulation is sold at newsstands. The price of a copy is BGN 0.20, the annual subscription is BGN 4. The newspaper is a 4-page publication in a tabloid format. Subscriptions and distribution are handled by the editor s office and, in smaller communities, voluntarily by the mayors and mayor s representatives.

The articles are developed by the editor s office. Editorial staff are not full-time employees and work on a voluntary basis. Pre-printing design is provided by a private company. The newspaper is printed at Abagar, Veliko Turnovo.

Funding is provided from subscriptions and services (ads, classifieds), so the Municipality does not allocate any budget funds for the newspaper. At the end of the year, there is a raffle for subscribers. All prizes are provided by local sponsor companies. The last year alone, the newspaper awarded more than 50 prizes!

The newspaper is very popular. Out of 4,000 5,000 households in the municipality, every second or third household is subscribed. Furthermore, some of the subscribers are Elena citizens who live elsewhere; to them, the newspaper is the link to their home town.

The newspaper s main goals are: to be as useful as possible and to cover important local events that have happened or are about to happen; to inform the citizens about the latest developments in local legislation (orders, ordinances, regulations, Municipal Council decisions); to provide timely information on the availability of funding to private businesses (e.g., the publishing of the Agriculture Fund s terms on various credit lines). There are sections on sports and cultures, as well as one on upcoming church holidays. The anniversaries of important events and persons also have their place in the newspaper.

In 1998-99, the editor s office, together with students from the Ivan Momchilov Secondary School, published The Chaos, a student newspaper that generated a lot of interest among both children and adults. Unfortunately, in 1999 and 2000 no students showed interest to continue to publish this edition. However, there is an insert to The Elena Tribune that is developed by, and dedicated to, the Elena Children Complex.

Results

The newspaper is a very good tool for timely informing the citizens about important issues. The coverage of local government legislation makes the functioning of the municipal administration and the Municipal Council more transparent. The publishing of articles by citizen encourages citizen participation in Elena s public life.

The Municipality is planning to publish the newspaper online. Most probably, it will be uploaded on Elena s web-page at www.elena.vali.bg. This will provide an opportunity for a larger audience, mainly comprised of young Elena citizens who live or study out of the city, to have access to information.