SECTOR 4 4.4. Equal opportunities regardless of race or ethnicity, social group, gender/sex, religion, disabilities and age are promoted in media houses. It would be hard to give an exact breakdown of the numbers of journalists according to gender, age, ethnicity, and religion in media houses because such factors are not often taken into consideration during recruitment. Media houses give more emphasis to competence and closeness to the place of work when recruiting journalists, given the limited resources at their disposal. Some attempts have been made, with mixed results, to give handicapped persons a chance in media houses. There is the case of a visually impaired journalist who “rose up the ranks” of the newspaper Le Lynx, where she dictated her articles, before joining the RTG. Panelists felt that depending on the nature of the handicap and the financial viability of the respective media outlet, recruitment of people living with disabilities could pose problems, especially for small media houses, as it might increase operating costs. 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: 4.0 (2008 = n/a; 2006 = n/a) 4.5 Journalists and editors do not practice selfcensorship. Generally, editors of the private media do not practice self-censorship. However, there is a kind of sponsored self-censorship: for example, an article may be withdrawn from one newspaper just to be skillfully leaked to another. In the public media, the phenomenon of self-censorship takes a more direct form when, for example, it comes to demonstrations by opposition parties or AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER GUINEA 2011 113