SECTOR 4 4.7 Journalists and media houses have integrity and are not corrupt. This cannot be answered positively as envelopes referred to as felaka, which event organisers hand out to journalists effectively influence these in the way they handle coverage. While one should refrain from generalisations, it does happen that strangers arrive five minutes before the end of an event just to sign up on the journalists’ attendance register in order to bag the envelope, although they are not professional journalists. Given that they have the resources to do so, politicians and the business community, use other, subtler means to pay in order to make the newspaper’s front page news, offering trips with all expenses paid. Some large companies make provisions for these expenses in their budgets. In summary, there is indeed corruption among journalists, which is also encouraged by those who pay/corrupt them. 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: 2.5 (2006= n/a, 2008 = n/a, 2010 = 1.7) 4.8 Salary levels and general working conditions for journalists and other media practitioners are adequate. It is fair to say that salary levels and general working conditions for journalists are inadequate. A journalist starting out gets (monthly) a low salary that comes to 200 000 Ariary14 or 100US$. The situation is worse in the broadcasting sector where the majority of professionals do not even make half of what those in the print media earn. General working conditions are furthermore far from decent as very 14 1 US$= 2000 AMG (Malagasy Arihari) 110 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER MADAGASCAR