A group of Moldovan journalists representing the nongovernmental organization RISE Moldova, in partnership with colleagues from international investigative journalism organizations, launched a journalistic investigation project in Moldova in a move to collect information about organized crime and corruption among high-ranking officials, IPN reports.
Editor-in-chief of the international investigative reporting organization Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP D) Drew Sullivan told a news conference that the journalists involved in the projects implemented by RISE Moldova can benefit from the technical assistance of thousands of colleagues from all over the world.
“As journalists specialized in investigations, we consider that the state officials sometimes lie. Our goal is to work in concert to reveal this lie to the whole society. It is indeed important for the journalists to overcome in Moldova the linguistic barriers and to work together to discover organized crime and corruption,” stated Sullivan.
Director of the Romanian investigative journalism organization RISE Project Paul Radu said that without international cooperation, it is impossible to completely investigate the work of a corrupt official from Chisinau, who hides his money somewhere on the Virgin Islands for example.
RISE Moldova administrator Iurie Sanduta said the project will involve not only journalists, but also programmers as this will allow to create a platform for joint projects in order to form different bases and web portals.
“We are ready to offer interesting web platforms and grants for conducting investigations to journalists and independent editorial offices of media outlets, on a contest basis,” said Sanduta.
Vladimir Thorik, editor-in-chief of the newspaper “Panorama” and editor of the Russian language department of RISE Moldova, said that one of the major aims of the project is to ensure experience exchange and cooperation between journalists working for Romanian and Russian media outlets.
“We invite the journalists from Chisinau, Gagauzia, Transnistria and other regions of Moldova to cooperate within this project. Owing to our partnership with the OCCRP and RISE Project of Romania, as part of this project the representatives of the local mass media will be offered technical assistance in using innovative documentation, editing and reporting methods, including through a multimedia approach,” stated Vladimir Thorik, adding that Romanian and Russian are the working languages within the project RISE Moldova.
