Opinion polls show that more citizens believe that it is possible to fight corruption, and the number of those who do not believe that it is possible to counter corruption has dropped from 20 percent to five percent, Josipovic said at the conference which brought together reporters, publishers, media owners and representatives of the judiciary.
The media are powerful and they are one of the most important factors to which credit goes for the good course of Croatia's fight against corruption, he said.
Commenting on the prosecution of corruption-related cases, Josipovic said that the number of such cases had risen over the last two years, with guilty verdicts having been handed down in 93 percent of those cases, which he said was facilitated also by amendments to the criminal procedure act.
Commenting on the media, he said that it was legitimate to be right-of-centre, left-of-centre or centrist newspapers, but it was not legitimate to be corrupt.
There must be no compromise about accurate facts, he said in that context.
Josipovic criticised the "quasi-investigative" journalism and distorted facts which "often obstruct investigations".
According to him, there is a conflict of interest between media as business subjects and media as providers of information. There is "a certain kind of censorship imposed on the media owing to financial interests," Josipovic said.
Commenting on the national broadcaster HRT, which he described as the most influential Croatian media organisation, the president said that so far the legislation had not managed to find the right model for managing public media.
Justice Ministry State Secretary Tatjana Vucetic told the conference that the fight against corruption was the government's strategic goal and that results in the anti-corruption drive were visible.
The conference was organised by the Justice Ministry and the EU Delegation to Croatia within the project "Strengthening the Inter-Agency Cooperation in the Fight Against Corruption - Raising Awareness Campaign". The EU Delegation's head, Ambassador Paul Vandoren, said that since 2002, the EU had earmarked 33 million euros for Croatia's efforts in the negotiating area Judiciary and Fundamental Rights within the country's EU accession talks, and that 22 million of that amount had been spent so far.