NIGERIA 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: The consensus on this question was that while codes of ethics and professional standards exist in the media (as well as outside) they are designed as quality control and quality assurance mechanisms, but weakly enforced. For example, although the Nigerian Press Council is the statutory body established to enforce ethics, the manner of its composition led to controversy which greatly diminished its potential effectiveness. The Nigerian Broadcasting Commission (NBC) seeks to regulate ethics and professional standards in the broadcast media especially on issues of election coverage but its use as a mechanism of censorship has been noted in earlier sections. More to the point are the ethics committees of the Nigerian Union of Journalists which are expected to sanction journalists who breach ethics and professional standards. It was observed, however, that for over a decade, these auspices have not been active, hence the failure to discipline egregious cases of misconduct as that of a slanderous publication regarding the alleged HIV–positive status of a female legislator. Both state and privately owned media have voluntary codes of conduct and standards but enforcement mechanisms have been quite weak. In-house codes also feature in quality newspapers like “The Guardian” and “This Day” but some of these are not put into practice. 30 African Media Barometer - Nigeria 2008