"Lithuania's corrupt media hurts everyone," says a 2007 report from the U.S. Embassy in Vilnius, published by WikiLeaks.

Norwegian Aftenposten tells this week that Lithuania, Bulgaria, Mexico and the Philippines are among the countries where one most easily can buy journalists and editors.

The newspaper refers to a four year old report from the U.S. Embassy in Vilnius, published by WikiLeaks. The report presents a very discouraging picture of the way the Lithuanian media works, and gives concrete examples of how politicians and businesses must pay local media to avoid negative publicity.

Click here to read the WikiLeaks document.

Worse after the financial crisis
"You must buy the right not to be attacked," Vilius Kavaliauskas, long-time journalist and former advisor to the Lithuanian Prime Minister is quoted saying to the Embassy people.

Kavaliauskas, who now works as a freelance journalist, tells Aftenposten that the financial crisis has exacerbated the ethical standards among media in Lithuania.

"It has not become any better since 2007. Many editors and journalists sell and monopolize news and opinions, and there are always questionable political alliances between the media and people in power. Two years ago the media in Lithuania lost its tax exemption. Now they pay 21 percent tax as all other businesses. This has increased the culture of corruption, and is a disaster for our country, "he says.

According to Kavaliauskas the new press laws that were introduced in the middle of the 1990s were inspired by the laws of the Scandinavian countries. "We were on good way, but now we see a total setback," he says.

Pfizer declined 'deal' with Respublika
The embassy document from 2007, which is titled "Lithuania's corrupt media harm everyone, including U.S. industry," says the local director of Pfizer's office in Vilnius, explaining in detail how he was contacted by the owner of the large newspaper Respublika, which offered to "kill" the pharmaceutical manufacturer's competitors in Lithuania.

The price would be one million litas ($ 400,000), and the director was given two weeks' time to respond, it says. When the two weeks had passed, he was again contacted by the newspaper's advertising people, but the director rejected the collaboration.

Shortly after, Respublika started to publish a series of negative articles about Pfizer, which among other things, claimed that several had died from using Viagra, that Pfizer was charging too much for their products, taking advantage of poor hospital patients and sick people.

Discontent over the price difference
The WikiLeaks document published by Aftenposten, also tells about a representative of the Lithuania's Labour Party who claimed that placing a positive article about him in the leading newspaper Lietuvos Rytas would cost 25,000 litas ($ 10,000), whereas a representative of the Social Democrat party would have to pay only 5,000 litas ($ 2,000).

"He was not complaining about paying for an article - he accepted that as common practice. He was complaining that his party had to pay more than another party," is the laconic comment in the embassy message.

Worst in Mexico and the Philippines
-Corruption in the media is common in Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America, but absolute worst is now in Mexico and the Philippines, "says Eva Stabell, director of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and responsible for the Norwegian Journalist Team's international work to Aftenposten.

"In these two countries there is a total corruption culture among journalists, incorporated as a part of their payments," she says.

In both countries have a large number of journalists have been killed in recent years.

"Many journalists are on the payroll of the mafia, " she says.