Namibia Sector 4: The media practice high levels of professional standards. 4.1 The media follow voluntary codes of professional standards, which are enforced by self-regulatory bodies. ANALYSIS: There is still no media council or other self-regulatory body. “What is becoming worrying is that the Minister of Information, at almost every opportunity, refers to this as a prerequisite for any other positive developments within the media sector.” Because the media is highly polarised, there has been great reluctance among editors to come together and discuss the establishment of a media council. MISA Namibia is trying to resuscitate the debate around a code of conduct/ethics, and has had some success this year with agreement to participate in such a meeting from all the country’s editors, through the Editors’ Forum, with the exception – not surprisingly - of Namibia Today, the SWAPO newspaper. Namibia Today apparently objects to three clauses of the code of conduct that relate to issues of partiality, balance and objectivity. After its launch in 2002, the code of conduct, developed by MISA, was publicly denounced by Namibia Today and thereafter received very damaging publicity on the NBC’s current affairs television programme ‘Talk of the Nation’. As a result of this, together with the fact that MISA was driving the process and was seen to be generally antagonistic towards the government, the code of conduct was not adopted by the media sector. Reviving the self-regulatory body is regarded as a priority to prevent the government from enforcing a state-controlled regulatory body. There was consensus that MISA and the Editors’ Forum should pursue the issue, without waiting for the participation of Namibia Today. African Media Barometer - Namibia 2007 41