A dangerous bill

The search for ethical responsibility in the Nigerian press took an interesting turn on Monday with the Information committee of the House of Representatives holding a public hearing on the private member’s bill in the name of Honourable Abike Dabiri-Erewa.

The bill is for an Act to provide for the repeal of the Nigerian Press Council Act, 1992 and establish the Nigerian Press and Practice of Journalism Council.

The bill like the old Press Council law seeks “to promote high professional standards for the Nigerian press, and deal with complaints emanating from members of the public about the conduct of journalism and media houses in their professional capacity, or complaints emanating from the press about the conduct of persons, organisations, or institutions of government towards the press.” But that is where the comparison ends. The bill is not the consensus bill negotiated in 2002 by media stakeholders with the federal government as replacement for the controversial Press Council Act 60 of 1998, which replaced that of 1992. Instead, it is an amalgam of various thoughts and efforts by different vested groups to ‘do something’ about the pitiable state of press ethics such as the Journalism Enhancement Bill, and that of Media Practice Bill.

In lending her support to this present adventure, I fear that Dabiri-Erewa, an accomplished broadcaster before embracing a political career, may do greater harm than good to the practice of journalism.

To begin with, the title of the bill, Nigerian Press and Practice of Journalism Council is befuddling- a product of the confusion afflicting the exercise. What does the Nigerian press, or any press for that matter, do if not practise journalism? Why not simply say Nigerian Press Council or Nigerian Journalism Council?

Still on names, the bill talks of a ‘media practitioner’, forgetting there is no creature such called. If it means journalists, they practise journalism, not media. The way medical doctors practise medicine, not hospital, which is a mere outlet, is akin to how journalists employ such media outlets as newspaper, radio and television to communicate their messages. At best, they are media professionals.

Apart from the 21-member council envisaged, the bill also provides for a 9-member Media Practitioner Complaint Commission to be established in every state and the Federal Capital Territory, which will adjudicate on the complaints “of professional or ethical misconduct in the respective states” and pass its decisions to the council for assent. In other words, there will be 333 members at 37 locations, running 37 offices to watch over the press, drawing various allowances, and incurring huge overhead costs from the public till.

The bill ignores the well-stated position of the press against criminalising media business. Section 67 (1) criminalises non-registration/licensing of a newspaper title with the council by slapping on culprits a fine of N250, 000, or an imprisonment term not exceeding 3 years or “to both such fine and imprisonment and to an additional fine of N5, 000 for every day the offence continues.” Yet newspaper title registration is on the concurrent list, which currently is carried out at the National Library or a State’s information ministry! Section 33 (1) of the bill has a curious provision for appointing a newspaper editor. The appointee must be at least 25 years old, have practised for 10 years, and be registered with the Nigeria Union of Journalists. Although the intention is to ensure experienced people mount the editorial chair, it is ridiculous to expect a journalist to start his career at 15, when the same bill provides for post secondary instruction in mass communication as a requirement for admission into the profession.

The height of confusion in the bill is the pitiable attempt to fix pay for journalists. Section 35 prescribes salaries that are “at least 20 percent above those paid to staff in Federal and State Government parastatals and private companies as the case may be.” Section 36 directs that “any media establishment that covers at least two-thirds of the country shall pay their workers not less than 120 percent above the rates of salary, pensions, allowance etc which obtain at the Federal level...” Section 37 then returns staff compensation to negotiations between employer and employee. In three succeeding sections the bill has shown why it does not deserve any serious attention.

It is hurriedly cobbled; it should be rejected while the consensus bill of 2002, which has passed the first reading at the Senate, should guide any further search for sustainable progress on a statutory regulatory mechanism for the Nigerian press. That is what the six-member technical committee established at the public hearing should concentrate on in the next two weeks.

If the bill has any redeeming value, it is that it has reopened discussion on the future of statutory regulation of the press and reminded the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association of Nigeria that it may not have the last word on regulating practice.