SECTOR 4 4.6 Owners of established mainstream private media do not interfere with editorial independence. The Freedom of the Mass Media and Access to Information Proclamation in its article 6 expressly protects editorial independence from interference by owners of publications: The mandate of the editor in chief designated by the publisher encompasses the power to supervise the publication of the periodical and to determine the content thereof in such a way that nothing may be printed therein against his will. Any practice or agreement that restricts this power shall be null and void. The editor-in-chief is defined in article 2 (11) as the person who “exercises exclusive editorial control”, while a publisher is defined in sub-article 12 as a “person who represents, owns or has a substantial proprietary interest in a mass media or carries on the business of management of a mass media.” In practice, however, editors of publications are also the owners and the other way round. The strict separation of powers as envisaged by the act is therefore seen as unrealistic. In the few cases where such a separation of roles exists, media owners take great interest in the content of their outlet and are therefore inclined to intervene in the production process: either they are journalists themselves or they do not want to antagonise their sources of income (advertisers). There are only a few exceptions to this general rule. 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: 2.2 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER ETHIOPIA 2010 55