Kassaye Dametie Gella

Even though journalists are obligated to be free and fair reporters, when it comes to the ground different factors affect the way they report the story directly or indirectly. One of these factors is accepting brown envelope from sources. In Ethiopia Brown envelope journalism is observed in a wide range for a multiple of reasons. This research intends to analyze the trend of accepting Brown envelope by comparing private and government owned media institutions namely ETV, FM Addis 97.1, ENN TV and Zami 90.7 FM radio. And also this paper lookup the extent and existence of brown envelop in Ethiopian media. The purpose of this research is to make a comparative analysis between the selected state and private owned news media concerning the acceptance (trend) of brown envelope. This study found out that accepting brown envelop is higher in private media (ENN and Zami 90.7 FM radio) than the government (ETV, FM Addis 97.1). Payment in private media‟s was found out to be lower than the government media‟s comparatively.