Tracing the Bulgarian Connection: Revisiting Ideology-Inspired News Coverage of Pope Assassination Attempt

Abstract

ABSTRACT The coverage of the trial in the assassination attempt against Pope John Paull II in the 1981 divided journalists in the United States. The dominant coverage relied on limited number of sources who speculated on circumstantial evidence to implicate Bulgaria and the Soviet Union. Through the prism of the agenda-setting and resource dependency theory, this paper revisits key moments of the coverage of the so-called Bulgarian Connection in American media and adds a fresh perspective to the existing analysis. To provide a deeper understanding of the processes that shaped the coverage, the paper also includes oral history interviews with journalists covering the trial against the shooter, and a former CIA analyst who participated in pertinent intelligence discussions about the possibility of Bulgarian involvement in the assassination attempt. This paper finds that limited journalistic resources on international affairs led to unbalanced reporting influenced by ideology with neo-conservative individuals controlling the agenda-setting function of newsrooms. This paper also finds that the polarized context of the Cold War created a thriving environment for the almost universal reinforcement of stereotypes and politically-sanctioned narratives and left little room for dissenting opinion. Finally, this author suggests recommendations to avoid ideologically-driven international reporting to dominate.