SECTOR 4 “Even if the journalist isn’t given an incentive by a politician, there are media owners who will sit down with politicians. Some come with briefcases of money. Some stories get spiked, but they don’t explain why the story was killed. You will just hear rumours that the boss was given a certain incentive.” The practice does not only happen in political circles, but amongst businessmen too. A journalist once ran a story about a Chinese businessman selling expired food that could have placed people’s health at risk. The businessman approached the journalist and offered her M10,000 (US$ 820) to destroy the footage. In this case, however, the journalist refused the bribe and went ahead with the story. In another example, at a local radio station, a journalist was working on a story about a truck owner involved in a corruption scandal at the Ministry of Agriculture, whereby the waybill was manipulated so that he could claim money back. The owner came to the station and wanted to see the editor, who referred him to the proprietor, to whom he offered money in order to keep the story back. “Later, the proprietor ordered the newsroom not to run the story.” Several more examples exist, with diverging outcomes. Some panellists posited that corruption in the media takes place due to the low salaries earned in the industry. “Some journalists are so poor that they’re willing to take anything to make their lives easier.” Even when journalists are provided with transport money by their media houses, some opt to “negotiate lifts from politicians or those hosting the events, to save the money that has been given for this purpose”, thereby compromising integrity and the quality of the report. Others countered this argument, stating that even with high salaries, some media professionals are still corrupt. “The problem is lack of standards and monitoring systems. If the systems are in place, this would help to minimise the incidence of corruption.” Most media houses do not have in-house policies on corruption; with very few of them requiring the declaration of freebies. 58 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER Lesotho 2015