Coalition 2000 Starts Implementing Media against Corruption BTA - 2000/4/22
Coalition 2000, that includes 7 non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), starts implementing a Media against
Corruption programme. Coalition 2000 Coordinator Emil Tsenkov
said this at a working meeting in the Centre for the Study of
Democracy Friday. Under the programme NGOs and journalists will
cooperate and take part in round tables and seminars on:
"Corruption in the Media", "Local Campaigns for Transparency",
"Investigative Journalism against Corruption", "Political
Scientists and Journalists against Corruption", etc. Coalition
2000 plans to institute an award for best investigative
journalist, said Tsenkov. The participants in the Friday meeting
discussed the problem of closer cooperation between NGOs and
journalists, the lack of limitations to the access to information
and of transparency in the operation of the state institutions
and the necessity that the Interior Ministry, the investigative,
prosecutor's and court authorities complete investigations and
inspections started by the media given that they have the
necessary means and instruments to do so. A 1999 survey by
Coalition 2000 showed that the issue of corruption was given high
prominence in the last three months of the year. The survey
covered nine national dailies, three weeklies and part of the
electronic media programmes. It gradually became a leading
issue. At the beginning of the year the papers tended to report
separate cases of corruption while later they switched to more
analytical coverage of the problem. According to a report on the
survey, 1,796 stories on corruption were published in
September-December 1999 which compares with 356 in the first
quarter of the year under review. Facts and evidence are quoted
in 37 per cent of the paper stories and 58 per cent of the
electronic media broadcasts. Fifty-eight per cent of the
corruption stories were leading ones. The focus of media
attention has shifted from lower to higher levels of state
administration. The report points as shortcomings the
politicizing of the issue and the bias shown in its coverage.
The media succeeded to assume the role of an important instrument
for anti-corruption pressure, the authors of the report say in
conclusion.