SECTOR 4 4.7 Journalists and media have integrity and are not corrupt. Corruption is endemic in the journalistic profession. In a survey carried out by Transparency International Zimbabwe, media is in the top six most corrupt sectors in Zimbabwe. Some journalists have a list of people whom they call “paymasters” and whom they know they can get money from. When they are broke they contact the person and claim they are sitting on a hot story which could be killed if a payment is made. The payment is made and the non-existent story ‘does not make it into the paper’. Others are going out of their way to take compromising pictures of people and then blackmail the person to keep the pictures out of the paper. “I went to a music concert show and the next day I was called by a journalist who asked me if I remember what I was doing, because he had pictures of me. I was told that if I did not pay, my pictures would appear in the paper. I told him to go ahead and put the pictures in the paper because I did not care. The pictures did not appear,” said one of the panellists. A journalist who did an interview with a prominent person on a topical issue was congratulated by several colleagues for “making a killing.” They all assumed she had been paid for the article because it is considered normal practice for people who get prominent space to pay for it. One prominent artist, for example, came to the newsroom for an interview. The journalist who was supposed to interview him was out and so it was done by another colleague. At the end of the interview the artist apologised and told the journalist that he only had US$200 and would send the rest later. For him this was standard practice – he had always paid every time he was featured in the media. All these examples, however, should not detract from the fact that most journalists in the country try to remain honest despite the difficult economic circumstances they are living in. 56 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER ZIMBABWE 2012