The force of the Fourth Estate – investigative journalism in Bulgaria

by Maria Spirova, Bulgaria

The Fourth Estate – media professionals both love and hate this lofty title and for a good reason. It gives them the sense of power and accomplishment, especially with the added bonus of always being the morally superior party. Always exposing wrongdoings, falsehoods, tyrannies, tirelessly educating the public. Yet it is a uniquely fragile title – one that does not depend directly on either the journalists' skill, determination or judgement. To claim the title of Forth Estate in any democracy, the media need to win one thing, and one thing only – the public's trust. If no one truly cares about what is being printed or broadcast, even the most exalted of journalistic efforts will be for naught. In other words, if the public does not believe the Fourth Estate matters, it simply ceases to exist. It's that easy. Yes, papers are printed daily and some of them report the facts, while a few even go so far as to offer analysis, but there is no force behind these words, no potential to induce change.

“No change!”. This summed up all reporters from across Bulgaria had to say about the results of their years of thankless work in the field on a special seminar devoted to the state of investigative journalism in the country earlier this year in Varna. The event was organised by the Union of Bulgarian Journalists and, frankly, the reports given sounded more like eulogies than overviews. It's not the threats of violence that stops us, the reporters said, since obviously everyone who strives to uncover dealings costing millions need to be prepared for aggression. It's not even that lesser and lesser numbers of media outlets will back investigations into big business (since in a small country most media corporations and big companies have interlinked interests). It's knowing that after our reports are published, nothing will happen. Except that maybe our car will be blown up. No institution or body of citizens will take action following our discoveries, no matter how rousing or drastic they are.

Listing the challenges facing investigative journalism in Bulgaria is similar to drawing up an epicrisis for an advanced cancer patient. Each line describes pain, humiliation and despair, with no clear hope in sight. True, many European countries experience a serious decline in investigative journalism. Exploring criminal activity has inherent dangers, lobbies are harder to infiltrate, information is harder to glean, thanks to ever more sophisticated PR, and editors have plainly seen that investigations into corporate insider dealing and municipal corruption schemes do not sell copies. Yet Bulgarian investigative journalism is presented with an almost insurmountable heap of impediments that seem to besiege it on all sides.

Looking at the environment in which Bulgarian reporters have to work daily, the first thing we see is a market that is simply collapsed. Regional media have either closed down due to financial trouble or been sold into subservience to some of the local industrial or agricultural fiefs. Such media outlets become barely more than a quaint badge of prestige for the local nouveau riche, who's got a hotel, a mine and now, why not a paper. It becomes impossible to write anything that would make the one who pays your salary uncomfortable, let alone angry. However, the same local money-providing entity is usually responsible for most of the deeds that would comprise suitable topics for investigation – corruption, environmental pollution, election rigging, etc. Provincial journalists are at an impasse. And what of mainstream media? Is there any measure of freedom there?

Whether the Bulgarian press is free or not is a question that cannot get a straight answer. And this, in my opinion, is much worse than a simple “No”. In the gray area of a fledgling capitalism and a democracy that may never learn to fly, there are worse things than the state-imposed censorship of the previous Communist era. Now media are free, but not independent. Each outlet is a tributary of sorts. Each is owned by a corporation that has close political allies whose objective it aims to serve. There aren't any media outlets in Bulgaria without strings attached to a business or a party, whose primary goal is obviously not reporting the truth or dealing in creditable information. So even serious journalism in Bulgaria is always secondary to something else. The decision-makers are people concerned with profit and good relations with persons of power. Not people concerned with journalistic integrity or anything resembling a mission. It is still common practice for people from the government to phone into newsrooms, “recommending” that certain information be omitted or modified. Compliance with such “friendly suggestions” is still expected confidently even if the news of the call itself leaks. How can media have a defining role in democracy when they are mostly relegated to mere covering of selected events and facts and this very situations is no secret to anyone?

Maria Spirova, 26, has a BA in Cultural Studies fom Sofia University and a Master (Sc) in Criminology and Crimanal Justice from Oxford University. She is the editor-in-chief for the Weidenfeld Scholarship Newsletter, an editor for GLAMOUR magazine Bulgaria and her own regular column in HER monthly, a Bulgarian magazin for businesswomen.