The professional associations and bodies which are behind this initiative, particularly the NPAN, must do everything possible to ensure that their members demonstrate total support and commitment to it. There can be no room for a half-hearted belief in this.

There are a number of other issues that will be important for the success of this mechanism. I will discuss some of these briefly:

Those who choose to use the Ombudsman mechanism must commit themselves fully to it. They should avoid taking issues which they have already submitted to the Ombudsman to the courts as this would clearly undermine the process. If complainants who submit their complaints to the Ombudsman thereafter take those same complaints to the law courts, then the media would not want to subject themselves to double jeopardy. They may also feel that their conciliatory efforts aimed at amicable resolution of difference might be used against them in court and this could inhibit the spirit of conciliation. Such a situation would result in the system progressively breaking down.

I appreciate that since the Ombudsman mechanism is voluntary and not statutory, it will be difficult to preclude complainants from subsequently exercising their legal rights where such rights exist or accrue. That is why members of the public who choose to use this mechanism must demonstrate their complete belief in the system and show good faith.

I think it is appropriate here to remind ourselves, as members of the public, of the intrinsic value of a self-regulatory mechanism, such as this, especially in a country like Nigeria where the alternative, which is the judicial system, is time-consuming, can be quite expensive and its outcome very uncertain.

If the real intention of a complainant is to vindicate his or her reputation or correct inaccuracies in a media report, the Ombudsman mechanism offers a quick and completely inexpensive process for achieving these objectives.

Other Measures

It is quite possible that if the system works perfectly and becomes a popular option with the public, the Office of the Ombudsman might become overwhelmed with the volume of complaints being brought before it. Other measures may therefore need to be taken to avoid this possibility.

One of such measures is to for individual media houses to make clear to the journalists working in their establishments what the standards are and to rigorously enforce those standards. This will send a clear message to journalists that brazen acts of professional misconduct will not be tolerated and I believe this will lessen the occurrence of such cases.

Media establishments can do this by adopting a practice of including the Code of Ethics in the terms and conditions of employment of reporters and editors. Such reporters and editors, in accepting the terms and conditions of the employment then undertake to abide by the Code of Ethics. Where a breach of the Code of Ethics and therefore the terms of employment of the journalist or editor is established, it would attract disciplinary measures from the employer.

Such a practice would also serve to create greater awareness among practitioners about the Code of Ethics and the standards to which they will be held. My interaction with professional colleagues over the past several years reveals that a shockingly large number of journalists have never seen, much less read, the Code of Ethics for Nigerian Journalists. I often wonder how they can be expected to comply with the standards if they do not even know what those standards are.

This problem needs to be seriously addressed because breaches of professional ethics and standards are also sometimes the result of ignorance among journalists rather than a deliberate desire to cause mischief. We therefore need to find other ways of raising awareness within the media community about the applicable code of ethics. Media managers should ensure that these professional standards are constantly referenced, regularly discussed and possibly taught in-house by more experienced reporters and editors.

It is also important that members of the public know and understand the standards that bind media professionals so that they can more effectively attempt to hold them to those standards. The code of ethics should therefore be publicized through articles and commentaries and should be published in newspapers and magazines as well as on their websites.

The practice proposed above of inserting the code of ethics in the employment contracts of reporters and editors would also make it far easier and possibly more expedient for media owners and managers to exercise such disciplinary control over individual reporters and editors in their employment who are proven to have violated the Code of Ethics than the Ombudsman may be able to do.

Concluded.

Ojo, Executive Director, Media Rights Agenda, made this presentation at an Awareness Seminar by the Newspapers Proprietors' Association of Nigeria (NPAN), in association with the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) and other stakeholders, on Tuesday week at Imperial Hall, Ikeja.