Abstract

How to discern quality corruption coverage from sub-standard reporting? This question was partly answered by a research conducted under ANTICORRP project which explored 24 case studies on interaction between journalists and corruption in five countries. This article generalizes on the findings of the said research to distinguish elements that constitute professional corruption coverage, such as keeping the newsroom autonomous, prioritising own investigations, providing protection against retribution, multiplying the quality work of others', keeping clean of media corruption etc. There are two principal assumptions underlying the article: a) journalism is and should be profession that entails both rights and responsibilities, b) professional standards as codified in "Declaration of Principles on the Conduct of Journalists" and in "Code of Ethics of Society of Professional Journalists" are worthy to be aspired to. This article has been written with a clear target audience in mind. These are the media professionals - journalists, editors, publishers in case they need some advice on quality corruption coverage.