Newspaper Staff Travel 8,000km around Moldova Covering Corruption

Staff from the Moldovan newspaper Ziarul de Garda travelled 8,000 kilometers around Moldova in 2008, meeting citizens and preparing special reports on the corruption they faced in their daily lives. As a result, the paper published more anti-corruption articles than any other newspaper in Moldova. In honor of this achievement, the paper held a ceremony recently to pay tribute to those who made their anti-corruption work possible. The atmosphere in the cold hall warmed considerably as invitees gathered to share gratitude and admire the exhibition of photographs taken during the investigative process.

Under a USAID-funded project led by the Academy for Educational Development in cooperation with IREX, Ziarul de Garda reporters have held dozens of meetings with citizens from Chisinau and surrounding towns since March 2008. At these assemblies they spoke to farmers, professors, doctors, merchants, the unemployed, students, and retirees to solicit their views on how corruption affects their daily lives. They discussed bribes, social problems in their towns, and ways to fight corruption at a local level. Farmers who are obliged to sell their produce on street corners or, worse, let the crops rot in the fields and people who suffered from injustice and poverty all found a place to have their voices heard on the pages of this nationwide paper.

After each meeting with local citizens, reporters wrote three articles—one report, one vox populi piece, and one opinion piece—which were published in the “Zona publica” supplement of Ziarul de Garda. The impact was unexpected. Journalists began receiving letters, calls, and visits from even more people bringing their complaints and problems after the articles ran. In some cases, the journalists took a personal interest and wrote letters to officials in attempts to help the claimants. Ziarul de Garda has sent over 200 official letters to the central and local government structures and public servants and received about 150 answers.