Buoyed by such compliments, media trade unions are unlikely to join the Organisation of Professional Associations (OPA).
The Working Journalists' Association, which got journalism recognised as a "trade" worthy of the wages board intervention in the mid 1980's, did not comment on the new salary structure or their plans to stay away from the OPA.
However, a senior reporter who requested anonymity said he feared a government conspiracy to get them to fall in line with the Declaration of Assets and Liabilities Law No 1 of 1975.
The law requires editors and members of the editorial staff of newspapers to make an annual assets declaration although not many are known to have complied over the years. But with higher pay, there is no escaping.
Click below to read more stories by our Paradise Isle correspondent The Wages Board for the Journalists Trade determined last week that an editor of a daily newspaper should be paid a minimum 22,730/= rupees, three times the amount of