Decreasing the corruption: Exchange of experiences and best practices in investigative journalism among journalists from Macedonia and Romania

Through partnership with the Romanian Center for Investigative Journalism, 10 journalists from the most relevant national and local media from Macedonia were trained by leading trainers in investigative journalism from Romania, on advanced techniques in investigative journalism.

The project enhances the journalistic standards for investigating and reporting on corruption and strengthens the capacity of the media for accomplishing their role in the fight against corruption. The starting point is an in – depth analysis of the manner in which the Macedonian media report on corruption, as well as detecting the main weaknesses in their reporting.

After determining the most vulnerable areas to corruption in Macedonia in the first phase of the project, by means of this project a total of 156 concrete measures that need to be taken by the authorities were created and recommended in order to narrow the room for corruption. The project included a comparison with the best practices from other countries, a series of workshops on which experts and representatives from the interested parties discussed and suggested ways to narrow the room for corruption, prioritizing the measures and sending them to the relevant institutions and the media, as well as monitoring their implementation.

As part of the project, a total of 68 journalists from 16 local TV stations from all cities in Macedonia were trained. The trainings took place on the very spot in the newsrooms of the local media, as well as on the field during their everyday work. They were directed toward enhancing the skills of the journalists for focusing their stories on the interest of the citizens from the local community and toward improving the informing of the citizens about issues that relate to their everyday life, about which these citizens can only get informed precisely through the local media. The project was financially supported by the Program for Small Grants of the US Embassy in Macedonia.