The Bulgarian section of the BBC World Service broadcasts from a warren of rooms on the seventh floor of Bush House in London – appropriately enough, along with other Balkan countries, in the building’s south-east wing.
Bulgarian section head Eleana (Ellie) Haworth has been navigating the labyrinth of corridors for more than 15 years and has ruled the roost since 1996.
Although the faded decor and number of journalists working in the Bulgarian section has not changed much since Haworth’s first day in 1985, as the world of communications has become quicker and more competitive, day-to-day activities have become considerably more advanced.
Haworth, who spent the 1980s and early 1990s progressing through jobs in the section she now runs, and elsewhere in the BBC, has a team of “14 and a half” staff in London. Two staff – a “fixer” and a journalist – are housed in the BBC’s flat in central Sofia and also report to her. The London-based Bulgari-ans take it in turns to return to their homeland on BBC reporting duties.
The Bulgarian section is responsible for finding, writing, editing and broadcasting stories for the radio, the World Service’s traditional function, and the Bulgarian links on the BBC’s website (www.bbc. co.uk/bulgarian).
From the top of her in-tray, Haworth produces the latest chart of the number of ‘hits’ the BBC World Service’s various national web pages have received. Since September 11, the BBC’s website has received considerably greater global interest and last month the Bulgarian page received a record 57,000 hits.
Haworth’s day-to-day job involves editorial meetings, monitoring output, dealing with licensing and liaison (for example, with the BBC’s staff in Sofia or rebroadcasters) – and even occasionally doing some broadcasting herself.
In Sofia, the World Service broadcasts on 91.0 FM. Fifteen hours each week are produced by Haworth’s team (all in Bulgarian, aside from English-language teaching programmes), and the rest is taken from the World Service’s core feed.
More than 40 of the commercial radio stations that have sprung up in Bulgaria since the end of communism also use the BBC’s news stories and analysis to spice up their own bulletins and ensure Haworth’s team can be heard throughout Bulgaria. Negotiating terms with these stations takes up much of Haworth’s time.
Each World Service country manager has considerable autonomy as to how their section operates. For example, most of the Czech section’s journalists are based in Prague, leaving just three in London. Haworth, however, feels Bulgarian listeners prefer the view from afar that more journalists in London can provide and, as a result, concentrates her resources here.
Haworth, who was brought up in the Sofia suburb of Iztok, the only child of an engineer father and professor mother, did not always have journalistic ambitions: “I was considering being an architect – I liked drawing”.
However, “by the luck of the draw” in the early 1980s she began work at the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency (BTA) – “a very difficult job to get into”. After the customary checks into her background and days of tests, she was offered a job in the organisation’s archiving department. She politely declined and instead landed a sought-after post in the ‘Foreign Information Department’.
“It was the time of the Falklands War,” she recalls. “We had to wait for the TASS [Soviet information service] line, whether we were going to back the UK or Argentina”.
She describes how seasoned correspondents would return from trips abroad and share exotic foreign liquor with the office’s young bucks, telling them what was happening in the world outside the communist states.
Haworth’s connection with the UK came via her degree in English and French at Sofia University. During the last year of her course she went on an international exchange programme to Leeds University, in the north of England, to improve her English. It was there, at the college disco, that she met her future husband, Jonathan, an engineer.
“We were allowed to go to England purely on the basis of our marks,” she recalls. “About 10 of us went – of course, the authorities had given us paranoid warnings about not talking to subversive strangers”.
Luckily for Jonathan, she decided to shun this advice and fully engaged with the locals. Having returned to Sofia to complete her degree, she invited him to Sofia in the summer. Within two years they were married, and, after Ellie had obtained her exit visa, she left Bulgaria on Christmas Day in 1982. After living and working in Leeds for three years, she landed a job at the BBC.
Nowadays Haworth returns to Bulgaria around four times each year, often visiting her family’s small flat in the Black Sea town of Pomorie. Jonathan – who now speaks Bulgarian – travels too, along with their five-year-old daughter, Nadia.
Because of her job, Haworth is unable to comment at length on political issues affecting Bulgaria. She certainly acknowledges, though, that the election of Simeon Saxe-Coburg as prime minister has made Bulgaria more interesting to the outside world.
She is reluctant to describe her future plans. It is clear, though, that she is well suited to her current job. When asked what she does in her time off, her response is instant: “I am one of the chattering classes,” she laughs. Although she is studying part-time for an MBA, enjoys swimming, the theatre – and, of course, looking after Nadia – it is clear politics plays a prominent role in her life.
“I care about what the BBC does for Bulgaria,” she says, clearly with genuine affection for both her employer and native land. It seems certain, at least, that she’ll be Bulgaria’s boss at the BBC for a while yet.
Bulgarian section head Eleana (Ellie) Haworth has been navigating the labyrinth of corridors for more than 15 years and has ruled the roost since 1996.
Although the faded decor and number of journalists working in the Bulgarian section has not changed much since Haworth’s first day in 1985, as the world of communications has become quicker and more competitive, day-to-day activities have become considerably more advanced.
Haworth, who spent the 1980s and early 1990s progressing through jobs in the section she now runs, and elsewhere in the BBC, has a team of “14 and a half” staff in London. Two staff – a “fixer” and a journalist – are housed in the BBC’s flat in central Sofia and also report to her. The London-based Bulgari-ans take it in turns to return to their homeland on BBC reporting duties.
The Bulgarian section is responsible for finding, writing, editing and broadcasting stories for the radio, the World Service’s traditional function, and the Bulgarian links on the BBC’s website (www.bbc. co.uk/bulgarian).
From the top of her in-tray, Haworth produces the latest chart of the number of ‘hits’ the BBC World Service’s various national web pages have received. Since September 11, the BBC’s website has received considerably greater global interest and last month the Bulgarian page received a record 57,000 hits.
Haworth’s day-to-day job involves editorial meetings, monitoring output, dealing with licensing and liaison (for example, with the BBC’s staff in Sofia or rebroadcasters) – and even occasionally doing some broadcasting herself.
In Sofia, the World Service broadcasts on 91.0 FM. Fifteen hours each week are produced by Haworth’s team (all in Bulgarian, aside from English-language teaching programmes), and the rest is taken from the World Service’s core feed.
More than 40 of the commercial radio stations that have sprung up in Bulgaria since the end of communism also use the BBC’s news stories and analysis to spice up their own bulletins and ensure Haworth’s team can be heard throughout Bulgaria. Negotiating terms with these stations takes up much of Haworth’s time.
Each World Service country manager has considerable autonomy as to how their section operates. For example, most of the Czech section’s journalists are based in Prague, leaving just three in London. Haworth, however, feels Bulgarian listeners prefer the view from afar that more journalists in London can provide and, as a result, concentrates her resources here.
Haworth, who was brought up in the Sofia suburb of Iztok, the only child of an engineer father and professor mother, did not always have journalistic ambitions: “I was considering being an architect – I liked drawing”.
However, “by the luck of the draw” in the early 1980s she began work at the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency (BTA) – “a very difficult job to get into”. After the customary checks into her background and days of tests, she was offered a job in the organisation’s archiving department. She politely declined and instead landed a sought-after post in the ‘Foreign Information Department’.
“It was the time of the Falklands War,” she recalls. “We had to wait for the TASS [Soviet information service] line, whether we were going to back the UK or Argentina”.
She describes how seasoned correspondents would return from trips abroad and share exotic foreign liquor with the office’s young bucks, telling them what was happening in the world outside the communist states.
Haworth’s connection with the UK came via her degree in English and French at Sofia University. During the last year of her course she went on an international exchange programme to Leeds University, in the north of England, to improve her English. It was there, at the college disco, that she met her future husband, Jonathan, an engineer.
“We were allowed to go to England purely on the basis of our marks,” she recalls. “About 10 of us went – of course, the authorities had given us paranoid warnings about not talking to subversive strangers”.
Luckily for Jonathan, she decided to shun this advice and fully engaged with the locals. Having returned to Sofia to complete her degree, she invited him to Sofia in the summer. Within two years they were married, and, after Ellie had obtained her exit visa, she left Bulgaria on Christmas Day in 1982. After living and working in Leeds for three years, she landed a job at the BBC.
Nowadays Haworth returns to Bulgaria around four times each year, often visiting her family’s small flat in the Black Sea town of Pomorie. Jonathan – who now speaks Bulgarian – travels too, along with their five-year-old daughter, Nadia.
Because of her job, Haworth is unable to comment at length on political issues affecting Bulgaria. She certainly acknowledges, though, that the election of Simeon Saxe-Coburg as prime minister has made Bulgaria more interesting to the outside world.
She is reluctant to describe her future plans. It is clear, though, that she is well suited to her current job. When asked what she does in her time off, her response is instant: “I am one of the chattering classes,” she laughs. Although she is studying part-time for an MBA, enjoys swimming, the theatre – and, of course, looking after Nadia – it is clear politics plays a prominent role in her life.
“I care about what the BBC does for Bulgaria,” she says, clearly with genuine affection for both her employer and native land. It seems certain, at least, that she’ll be Bulgaria’s boss at the BBC for a while yet.
