The Investigative Journalism Center and the United Nations Development Program in Moldova launched the media campaign “Journalists against Corruption” on the International Anti-Corruption Day marked on December 9. The Center will provide financial and legal assistance to journalists in writing investigative articles. At the first stage, five journalists won by 5,500 lei to carry out investigations and write stories, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to Cornelia Cozonac, president of the Investigative Journalism Center, the campaign will last throughout 2010. It aims to encourage the journalists to promote corruption-related subjects and to motivate the ordinary people, businessmen and representatives of nongovernmental organizations to more actively engage in the fight against corruption. ”The disclosure of corruption cases in the press will make the people become more active, not tolerate corruption acts and ask that the authorities take steps when the citizens or the press reports such cases. The team of the Investigative Journalism Center will inform the anticorruption institutions about all the cases reported by the press so that they hold those to blame accountable,” Cornelia Cozonac said. At the first stage of the campaign, there were selected five investigative projects on corruption submitted by national and regional journalists, which were awarded by 5,500 lei each. During the previous anti-corruption campaigns, the Investigative Journalism Center and the journalists engaged in projects conducted over 200 journalistic investigations into cases of corruption and abuse involving public servants. Founded in 2003, the Investigative Journalism Center is a media nongovernmental organization that promotes investigative journalism and the professional values.