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Alexenia Dimitrova

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Alexenia Dimitrova (Bulgarian: Алексения Димитрова) is a Bulgarian journalist and author who started her career in the late 1980s. She works for 24 chasa, the second largest daily in Bulgaria. Her favorite topics are secret archives of the Cold War era, shadow affairs and corruption, money laundering, suspicious ownership and property, and secret societies. Recently she has profiled finding lost people all over the world and reuniting them. For her series of publications about missing persons which started in July 2002, and still continues, she received Chernorizets Hrabar (the most prestigious award for investigative journalism in Bulgaria) in November 2004. She had been nominated for the same award in 2003.

Dimitrova has published more than 4,000 stories in 40 media in Bulgaria, the USA, Russia, and Great Britain. Her book The Iron Fist - Inside the Bulgarian and American Secret Archives was published in March 2005 in London and in English by Artnik Publishing. The same book (under the title The War of the Spies) was published in Bulgaria in October 2005.

Dimitrova graduated from Sofia University in 1986 and has specializations on journalism in the World Press Institute, St. Paul, MN, and the University of Missouri, Columbia, (USA), Reuters (Great Britain), European Center for Journalism (Netherlands), and Danish School of Journalism in Aarhus. Mrs. Dimitrova is licensed lecturer in journalistic investigations in Bulgaria within the framework of SouthEast European Network for Professionalism in the Media. She was also a local trainer for the BBC on investigative journalism during a 3-year project implementing the Self-regulation and the Code of Ethics of Bulgarian Media. She is one of the 12 members of the Press Complaint Commission in Bulgaria.

She has been invited to speak at seminars and other events of investigative journalism in Bulgaria, Denmark, Croatia, Netherlands, Austria, Moldavia, Armenia, Slovenia, Germany, Bosnia, Albania, Azerbaijan, and Turkey.

She is a member of the union of Bulgarian journalists, the Investigative Journalists Association; International Federation of Journalists (IFJ); and is a founding member of South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO).

Affiliations with former communist secret service agencies

In December 2009 Alexenia Dimitrova (agent “Vladimir”) was exposed as one of the names of leading journalists from Bulgarian print media who were operatives of the so-called Committee for State Security – the secret police and intelligence of the former communist regime.[1] The journalist shared activities in State Security together with her now former Editor-in-Chief of the 24 Chasa Daily, Valeri Naydenov,[2] (under the name “Sasho”) and fellow journalist Pencho Kovachev (agent “Maxim”), who also worked for the 24 Chasa Daily.[3][4][5]

Alexenia Dimitrova's official operative data: 

Алексения Димитрова Куртева	07.08.1963 г.	София	о. р. Красимир Вакрилов на 09.06.1988 г., регистрирана на 15.06.1988 г.	о. р. Красимир Вакрилов	ДС, управление VI-II-I	агент	Владимир	"Рег. дневник; картони – обр. 4 – 2 бр. и обр. 6; писмо вх. № 752/ 12.02.1990 г. за унищожаване с протокол № 44/ 21.01.1990 г. личното и работното дело на аг. ""Владимир""."		Водеща на рубрика	105

Dimitrova contributed to 6th Directorate of the Committee for 2 years from June 15, 1988, to January 21, 1990[6] - a department whose main goal was the total ideological control over the intelligentsia, universities and clergy of communist Bulgaria, to name a few.

Controversies:

Dimitrova's communist past still remains a controversial topic to Bulgarian independent media[7] because of her continued cooperation with independent Western European media organizations,[8] whose core values do not require from their members to have professional experience clear from affiliations with former communist secret service. Such ethical confusion within international journalism has not been solved yet by its ethical standards. Cases like Dimitrova's pose challenges to the role of freedom of the press in the former Eastern bloc,[9] where full media plurality and independence have not been achieved yet.[10]

References

  1. ^ "Сътрудници на ДС на челни позиции и в печата - Mediapool.bg". Mediapool.bg. Retrieved 2016-04-04.
  2. ^ "Валери Найденов".
  3. ^ "Top Bulgarian Journalists Exposed as State Security Collaborators - Novinite.com - Sofia News Agency". www.novinite.com. Retrieved 2016-04-04.
  4. ^ "Станаха известни агентите на ДС в печата". www.dnevnik.bg. Retrieved 2016-04-04.
  5. ^ "Решението на Комисията по досиетата и пълен списък на обявените сътрудници на ДС".
  6. ^ "All data on operatives".
  7. ^ "Биволъ".
  8. ^ "Journalist Profile".
  9. ^ "Media freedom struggles in Europe". Foreign Policy Blogs. Retrieved 2016-04-04.
  10. ^ "Media freedom struggles in Europe". Foreign Policy Blogs. Retrieved 2016-04-04.
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