{"title": "Coalition 2000 Starts Implementing Media against Corruption","content": "<div class='descr'>Coalition 2000, that includes 7 non-governmentalorganizations (NGOs), starts implementing a Media againstCorruption programme. Coalition 2000 Coordinator Emil Tsenkovsaid this at a working meeting in the Centre for the Study ofDemocracy Friday. Under the programme NGOs and journalists willcooperate and take part in round tables and seminars on:'Corruption in the Media', 'Local Campaigns for Transparency','Investigative Journalism against Corruption', 'PoliticalScientists and Journalists against Corruption', etc. Coalition2000 plans to institute an award for best investigativejournalist, said Tsenkov. The participants in the Friday meetingdiscussed the problem of closer cooperation between NGOs andjournalists, the lack of limitations to the access to informationand of transparency in the operation of the state institutionsand the necessity that the Interior Ministry, the investigative,prosecutor's and court authorities complete investigations andinspections started by the media given that they have thenecessary means and instruments to do so. A 1999 survey byCoalition 2000 showed that the issue of corruption was given highprominence in the last three months of the year. The surveycovered nine national dailies, three weeklies and part of theelectronic media programmes. It gradually became a leadingissue. At the beginning of the year the papers tended to reportseparate cases of corruption while later they switched to moreanalytical coverage of the problem. According to a report on thesurvey, 1,796 stories on corruption were published inSeptember-December 1999 which compares with 356 in the firstquarter of the year under review. Facts and evidence are quotedin 37 per cent of the paper stories and 58 per cent of theelectronic media broadcasts. Fifty-eight per cent of thecorruption stories were leading ones. The focus of mediaattention has shifted from lower to higher levels of stateadministration. The report points as shortcomings thepoliticizing of the issue and the bias shown in its coverage.The media succeeded to assume the role of an important instrumentfor anti-corruption pressure, the authors of the report say inconclusion.</div>"}