SECTOR 4 The media practice high levels of professional standards. 4.1 The media follow voluntary codes of professional standards, which are enforced by self-regulatory bodies that deal with complaints from the public. Following the initiative of the National Union of Journalists of Côte d’Ivoire (UNJCI), players in the media industry publish a Code of Ethics for journalists on 29 August 1992. This code was established in response to recurrent abuses occurring at that time, abuses that were closely connected to the vast amount of politicised newspapers and unqualified journalistes on the market (between 1990 and 1996, 7000 cases of ethical breaches were counted and 500 cases of public complaints). This code was strengthened in 1995 through the introduction of OLPED (Observatory for Press Freedom, Ethics and Deontology), a self-regulating body. For each case tackled, OLPED is to publish rulings and to give the right to respond in accordance with the law. In case of repeated mistakes, journalists can be sanctioned, which can go as far as being stripped of their press cards. Up until 2002, OLPED used to publish its rulings but with the outbreak of rebellion that same year, the Observatory abstained from publishing its rulings, as this would have risked exposing journalists and the incriminated bodies to all sorts of aggression. In order to address matters of employment contracts, sources and the protection of journalists, the Code of Ethics was revised on 23 February 2012. Certain media have also adopted an internal code of ethics, such as Fraternité Matin’s code of honour in 2002 – at a time when the newspaper recorded a record loss in circulation from 120,000 down to 12,500. RTI also has an internal code, which foresees a mediator representing the public in order to ensure greater readability (based on the model applied by the big French channels France 2 and France 3). In 2003, Fraternité Matin attempted to draw up a journalistic code of conduct but the editorial office at the time was too unstable to endorse the initiative, which hence has not been implemented. 106 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER COTE D’IVOIRE 2012