The lights often went out in the newsroom. Hours would pass before they came back on, but Lindita Çela never left her desk. She had stories to write—murder cases that didn’t add up, government officials with deep ties to the criminal world, and a country struggling to forget what it had never fully confronted before. It was the early 2000s, and in Albania, investigative journalism was still an unheard-of concept. What Çela was doing didn’t even have a name yet.
She started as a cultural journalist, writing reviews of exhibitions and performances. Her editors soon noticed a different curiosity in her. They began assigning her stories about crime and corruption, asking her to dig deeper, to follow the trail where others stopped at press statements. “At that time,” she says, “we didn’t call it investigative journalism. It was just journalism.”
Through her experiences, she was discovering The Path of truth that few dared to traverse, illuminating the journey for others.
As she navigated through the murky waters of journalism, Lindita found herself reflecting on The Path she was carving in this challenging landscape.
Her journey has not only defined her career but has also illuminated The Path for aspiring journalists in Albania.
Today, Lindita Çela is one of the most persistent investigative journalists in the region. She is known for her work with BIRN, OCCRP, and now for founding “shteg.org,” a media platform she created not out of ambition, but out of necessity. The stories were still there. The space to tell them was missing.
Her breakthrough didn’t come through a sensational headline, but through a photograph. It showed a well-known drug trafficker standing side by side with a high-ranking Albanian minister. The image, accompanied by her investigative reporting, revealed the behind-the-scenes of a silent agreement involving a casino and the blessing of the authorities. The story was published — and the consequences were tangible.
Then came an even more dangerous truth. In 2023, she helped uncover connections between a well-known Albanian political figure and organized crime networks abroad. The investigation lasted for months. But when the materials were ready for publication, Albanian media refused to publish it. One outlet published it for a day and then deleted it. Çela had spent nine months working on this story, had left the country for safety reasons, and returned to silence. “That’s when I realized,” she says, “that what we needed was our own path.”
“Shteg” means “path.” It is her response to a media landscape increasingly influenced by political compromise, self-censorship, and self-preservation. At “shteg.org,” there is only one rule: if the facts are solid, the story is published. And it stays online.
Çela had never managed an organization before. She hadn’t written budgets, didn’t know tax laws, and had never hired staff. Her first funding proposal, she says, was a failure. But she learned quickly. Throughout this process, she discovered how much journalism’s integrity depends on what happens behind the scenes—whether the newsroom is built to withstand pressure.
The pressure is all-encompassing. Some experienced journalists refused to work with her unless they were paid under the table or guaranteed editorial protection for their powerful allies. She rejected these conditions. Instead, she chose to train young journalists. One of them, Sabina Nika, now covers the Albanian judicial system, reporting with a precision that many of her older colleagues no longer demonstrate. “We follow the evidence,” Çela says. “That’s the only order I give.”
When asked why she never left Albania, even when it would have been safer, her answer is calm but determined: “I was born for this battle.”
Her father, once a military officer, was imprisoned by the communist regime simply for expressing a critical opinion in front of a friend. He spent a decade behind bars. Her mother, left to raise the family alone, taught her daughters not to complain, not to back down, and not to accept injustice as inevitable. Leaving would have felt like a betrayal—not only to the country but also to history, memory, and those who had paid the price for freedom of thought when thinking freely was still dangerous.
“I had the chance to leave,” she says. “Trainings abroad, offers. But I couldn’t. Not when there is still so much to say. Not when we still haven’t told the truth about our past.”
There are moments that make it all worthwhile and reinforce her conviction. Like when the residents of a remote village reject a government development project after reading one of her investigations. Or when two distant cities, connected only by her reporting, become part of the same conversation. These moments don’t go viral. We don’t follow trends. But they matter.
When asked who her personal hero is, she mentions her mother. “She taught me to work. To be honest. To never accept the world as it is.”
As for superpowers, she completely dismisses the idea. “People expect miracles,” she says. “But nothing changes by magic. You have to work. You have to love what you do. That’s how change begins.”
And for Lindita Çela, this is the challenge she embraces—not to simplify the truth, but to sharpen it so intensely that it cannot be ignored. She refuses to believe that readers are indifferent. She insists they don’t need less truth, but more courage in how it is conveyed.
Because in the end, Çela says, the readers are never to blame. If people pass by the truth without stopping, it’s because no one made it urgent enough, human enough, or clear enough to stop them. “We live in a world of noise,” she says, “but if you listen carefully, people still want the truth. They are waiting for it.”
Her work is not just journalism. It is a refusal to turn her back on the truth. It is a model of what journalism can still be: principled, unwavering, and rooted in the belief that even in a world full of noise, clarity can break through.
And if it happens, she will be there—calm, determined, and ready to tell the next story.
This article reflects the views of the mentioned beneficiaries and does not necessarily represent the official opinion of the EED.
RRKOKSH (Rrjeti për Raportimin e Krimit të Organizuar dhe Korrupsionit në Shqipëri), organizata juaj kryesore mediatike investigative e angazhuar për të hedhur dritë mbi krimin e organizuar dhe korrupsionin në të gjithë Shqipërinë. Nëpërmjet platformës sonë online në shteg.org, ne ofrojmë një gazetari të plotë dhe me ndikim që synon jo vetëm të informojë, por edhe të nxisë ndryshimet shoqërore.