SECTOR 4 The media practice high levels of professional standards. 4.1 The media follow voluntary codes of professional standards, which are enforced by self-regulatory bodies that deal with complaints from the public. The Ivoirian media adopted on 29 August 1992, at the initiative of UNJCI, a Code of Professional Conduct for Journalists. This code reproduces the universal standards of journalism applied in the world’s largest democracies. Between 1995 (year during which the Observatory on Press Freedom, Ethics and Deontology, OLPED, was created) and 2000, the Ivorian media endeavoured to comply with the ethics and professional standards of the code. Most Ivorian journalists tried not to be caught by the self-regulatory body. However, since the political and military crisis experienced by the country, the media has given less importance to ethics, deontology and professional standards. According to OLPED, observation of the media over the past 14 years indicates that journalists do not generally comply with the standards. However, they do not fuss about appearing before a peer tribunal and, if necessary, make up for any wrong they may have caused a third party. But OLPED notes that the plaintiffs find it very difficult to get the media to respect their right of reply. In order to ensure a more rigorous control and to better analyse media content, OLPED constantly updates its listening and reading grid. As a sign of this commitment, the number of points (violations of ethics and deontology) has risen from 6 to 21 over the past few years. Regulatory bodies are also stepping up their action against the recurrence of failure to comply with ethical and professional standards. On 15 April 2009, the National Press Board decided, through a self-initiated procedure, to ban the publication of the daily newspaper Le National for a month, from 20 April to 19 May 2009. The newspaper had, a month before, published a particularly offensive article on a citizen. In fact, the National Press Board (CNP) was compelled to take action against this newspaper which had taken to publishing “very insulting, libellous and defamatory” articles against authorities, business executives and even media managers. 14 15 116 In May 2009, it was a certain number of headlines considered as incendiary and incitements to violence and hatred that caught the attention of CNP members who noted that “since the announcement of the date of the presidential elections, the press, through its publications, is constantly instigating and feeding the social tension, and hence breaking off its own commitments to basically preserve an appeased social climate necessary to properly conduct operations to end the conflict”. AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER IVORY COAST 2009