SECTOR 4 him not to do so and even asked if he could sell the media house to them so as to continue printing the paper., which is not for free. Negotiations are currently on-going for improvement of salaries at ORTB. Outside of the basic salaries however, the other conditions of service are not enviable though there are a few exceptions. When a journalist of the public media is sent to cover events in a conlict zone, he/she is given insurance cover. According to some panelists, the transportation of journalists becomes the duty of the event organizer whether it is being held in Cotonou or up country. here are times when ORTB staf tells event organizers to go see a private media house for coverage of their event, since those are houses in which they have a stake. It is surprising that there are mechanisms in place to oblige media bodies to give their journalists decent working conditions even in the face of all these deviant practices. his is the reason why all media houses requesting assistance from the concerned authority, should out of necessity register two of their journalists and state their salary levels. Unfortunately however, they are able to by-pass these conditions by providing supporting documents though they have evidently not met the conditions. Journalists cite transportation challenges as the reason why they do not have their registration but this is refuted by one of the panelists since registration is done only once and used for good. hey simply lack the will to comply with the rules and that is why they use false statements when requesting assistance that is given to the media houses. Scores: Individual scores: 1 Country does not meet indicator 2 Country meets only a few aspects of indicator 3 Country meets some aspects of indicator 4 Country meets most aspects of indicator 5 Country meets all aspects of the indicator Average score: 1.5 (2007 = n/a ; 2009 =1.5) AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER BENIN 2011 125