SECTOR 4 Some corporate and government practices also compromise the impartiality of journalists. Being given a ride by officials, travelling in the Presidential jet, getting free cellphones, being taken for quad-biking outings, or parties being specifically organised for the media by certain companies can clearly compromise how critically a journalist writes about said company or official. The panel questioned,“if journalists go on joyrides, are they going to be objective at the end of the day?” There seems to be a “trend of pampering journalist by corporates”, commented one member of the panel. “...if journalists go on joyrides, are they going to be objective at the end of the day?” Company branding is another issue, whereby it seems that some journalists are not even aware that from head to toe, they are wearing free branded clothing when they go for an interview or cover an event. It was revealed that this situation “...got real bad at The Namibian and it was taken up”. Furthermore, embassies that are from countries in which they are accustomed to paying for stories often bring such practices with them and “hand out brown envelopes at their events” even if this is uncommon in Namibia. Generally, the corruption in the media reflects corruption in society. So while it might not be overt, it was agreed that they had all heard about people engaging in corrupt practices. Sometimes it is simply the way a story is written or the fact that a rather promotional story is written, which creates suspicion-whether unfounded or not. A panellist noted concern about trends where a certain personality would receive several days of continuous negative coverage from a media outlet, and wondered where “someone is being paid” in such instances. Another journalist recalls an interviewee being surprised that the journalist did not want to get paid for taking his picture claiming, “but we paid N$200 to a junior reporter from [XYZ] Newspaper to take a photo”. One panellist saw the entire existence of a state-owned media sector as a corruption of the profession, saying “Journalists are not supposed to work for government”. As the watchdogs of society, the panellist continued, “it corrupts their standards”. Another contentious issue is chequebook journalism, whereby some of the tabloids such as Confidente sometimes pay for stories. All agreed that such a practice “undermines the credibility of the story”. 60 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER NAMIBIA 2015