According to the Organic Law no. 011/001 of 10 January 2011, which established it, the CSAC theoretically is an independent body, protected against any interference. However in terms of regulating the audiovisual sector, the CSAC only exercises the “regulation of content while the regulations and infrastructure remain under the purview of the Government.” The CSAC is tasked with giving its opinion before attributing frequencies and before issuing any receipts to broadcasters, print and electronic media. In practise, the Ministry of Communication administers and grants frequencies. The CSAC does not fulfil its role entirely and is considered as being very weak to fulfil its responsibilities entirely. Instead, the Ministry of Communications regulates frequencies and the broadcasting sector. As a result of the state media’s last reforms in 2011, the Congolese National Radio Television (RTNC) has a new board of directors and a new director general. The board consists of five members, including the director general, appointed, relieved of their functions or dismissed by the President of the Republic upon recommendation of the government. The board of directors is not representative of society in its entirety. It features no civil society representative and the representatives are nominated by the Head of State in a discretionary manner from among the civil servants and majority party members. In practise, the RTNC reports back to the ruling party heads. The law guarantees the RTNC’s editorial independence as a public media service provider but in actual fact it acts as partisan media with staff selected to defend the interests of a camp. Hosts of debating shows at RTNC are members of or closely aligned to the party in power and the debates are biased in order to serve the party. With its method of financing the RTNC is not yet in a position to operate like a public media service provider. A satellite bouquet theoretically ensures coverage for the national territory but various areas of the country are not covered. It broadcasts local and diverse content through its cultural programmes but programming does not take all interests into account. News broadcasts by the RTNC are unbalanced and rather partisan. The activities of the Head of State and the members of government heavily dominate the majority of programmes and televised news. There is a “Code of Ethics for journalists in the DRC”, which media professionals adopted on 4 March 2004 and which is applied by the OMEC, handling complaints citizens lodge. Generally speaking, basic principles of accuracy and impartiality are not adhered to, except for a few rare exceptions in the media. However, since the OMEC, with the support of the Congolese National Press Union (UNPC), put the Code of Ethics into place in 2005, noticeable qualitative changes towards handling news in a more balanced way can be observed. AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER Democratic Republic of Congo 71