I wanted to be brave in 2026, and going freelance was part of that. | Gergana Krasteva
In the latest episode of The Intelligence Spotlight from Intel Focus, Qais Alamdar speaks with Gergana Krasteva about what journalism looks like when the job stays serious, but the economics, risks, and incentives keep shifting.
Gergana’s route into the industry was not linear. She moved to the United Kingdom at 18, studied journalism, then spent four years working outside the field, convinced she might never break in. Even after entering the profession, she describes recurring moments of doubt about whether it is “worth it”, and what the long-term plan really is. She also punctures the myth of effortless confidence: the “deadpan” Eastern European look, she says, can read as certainty, while in reality she is “just winging it” like everyone else.
The episode’s core thread is money, described without romance. Gergana recalls being paid £20,000 as a local newspaper multimedia reporter at the start of the Covid era, a salary that did not change for two and a half years. She notes that many early-career journalists, particularly in London, supplement income with second or third jobs, including pub work or side freelancing where contracts allow. “It’ll be hard to find an early-career journalist who’ll say: ‘I’m well paid’,” she says.
Freelancing, she explains, multiplies the pressure. Foreign reporting comes with upfront costs: flights, visas, hotels, gear, and insurance. Payment often arrives only after publication, creating a gap between “point A” and “point B” that can stretch for weeks. Advice she received before going freelance was to hold at least two months’ salary in the bank, and she suggests even more now. Still, she chose the leap for freedom, calling it a decision to “be brave in 2026”, with the candid caveat that she will seek staff work again if it fails.
Gergana also maps how structural incentives shape coverage. She argues that foreign stories often need a UK link to travel, and points to consolidation: “three media companies” owning “around 90%” of what people see in the news, with further consolidation across 2025 and into early 2026. She adds that advertising funds most newspaper journalism, even if she has not personally been told to drop a story to appease an advertiser.
Risk and ethics sit underneath all of it. She describes 2025 as one of the deadliest years for journalists, citing more than 230 killed and nearly 43% in Gaza Strip, while noting that Western journalists remain barred from entering Gaza and media teams have faced attacks in Lebanon and Ukraine.
The unglamorous side of staying alive, she says, is training and routine: hostile-environment courses, seatbelts, not standing out, varying routes, and avoiding predictable habits. And in a media world where “content creators” increasingly mimic reporting, she argues that ethics, law, and safeguarding are what should still separate journalism from performative storytelling, including the sanitised “safe Afghanistan” genre that ignores human rights abuses, or interviewing children without adults present.
One detail captures the craft’s reality: some of her best story leads, she admits, came from waking at 3am and doom-scrolling, “very bad advice” that nonetheless reflects a reporter’s constant mental scanning.
