"The coronavirus pandemic brought immense challenges to journalists worldwide, including new threats to media freedom, journalism safety and practice. The impact of the pandemic on journalism is yet to be fully understood and examined but this paper contributes to the field by focusing on the impact of the COVID-19 health crisis on the media in countries with democratic deficits, such as Bulgaria. Studies on former Eastern bloc countries have become few and far between recently so this research aims to fill this gap by examining how the coronavirus pandemic and associated restrictions have impacted journalism practice in Bulgaria and how journalists, and independent media organisations responded and adapted to the pressures in 2020. Our findings from semi structured interviews with media practitioners show that it is the independent media that has borne the brunt of the crisis. In addition to existing challenges to press freedom, many Bulgarian journalists encountered new limits to their daily practice in reporting on a topic of significant public importance." (Abstract)

"Using purposive sampling as a strategy, we complied a sample made up of 17 Bulgarian publishers and journalists from 11 national and regional media, interviewed online in April 2020, picked specifically on the grounds of their relevance to our research aims. In order to get a fuller picture of the impact of COVID-19 on journalism practice, our sample had to be diverse, including four independent publishers, five reporters, six editors, one deputy editor and one presenter from some of the main national media outlets in the country but also from regional newsrooms." (Methodology, page 125)