SECTOR 4 4.8 Salary levels and general working conditions for journalists and other media practitioners are adequate. he average salary in the public media ranges between 70,000 and 300,000 CFA. here is a collective agreement which was the result of negotiations between employers and the journalist association but they do not abide by it. It keeps changing depending on the status of the media practitioners. In the public media there are unionized workers where the agreements are applied accordingly. In the private media however, there is no stated salary but the journalists do not complain either. he igures assembled by the panelists show that in a private media house 70% of the personnel are non-salaried workers and 30% are salaried workers. It is to be noted also that the oicial revenues rise to as high as 300,000 CFA yet some journalists live in aluence and that creates the impression of a paradox.For comparison a teacher in a secondary school who has level A1.12 the highest level of that line of ranking is paid 380,000 CFA, while professors earn 1 million CFA. he panelists were able to explain the situation of starvation salaries on the one hand and aluent lifestyles of private practitioners on the other with the fact that they have established networks, which make it possible to be informed of all events especially workshops so they can get represented (even when absent) on the list of those present in order to receive their daily share of per diems. Some occupy speciic positions: for example, there is a group of parliamentary journalists who have constituted themselves in parliament as a lobby group and have succeeded in negotiating a quarterly subsidy of 300,000 CFA. Others like the cameramen also have the business they do. hey know of all the openings and are able to make up to 40,000 CFA/day. Some of the media bosses have a way of calculating the monthly earnings of a journalist due to their knowledge of these practices and from the number of programs covered by him/her in a given month. his is why there are no disputes on the rights of these journalists though the records on their salaries give the picture of a precarious situation – this is of concern to the trade unions especially when it comes to the implementation of the collective agreement of 2008. here is some kind of understanding between the employers and the journalists. he proof is that when an owner wanted to close down a media house due to fees he could no longer aford, the journalists told 124 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER BENIN 2011