Kenya Media Group, the company which originally pushed for its establishment. The Council receives 45 complaints on average every month. A good deal of these cases is solved without a formal hearing by the complaints committee. Complaints have been submitted even by embassies, the First Lady (after she – infamously – ‘visited’ a [wrong] newsroom to object against coverage of an incident she was involved in), and the minister of information and communication. Matters are usually settled amicably. From time to time criticism has been raised that the council “lacks teeth”. However, the body sees itself as a mediation mechanism in order “to heal wounds” rather than a punitive exercise. A Media Task Force set up by the ministry of information and communication in early 2005 again recommended the creation of a statutory media council. Panelists argued that a self-regulatory body should be preferred and endorsed by government instead, because a government controlled mechanism would not be able to deal with complaints from government (conflict of interest). SCORES: Individual scores: 3,3,4,4,3,3,3,2,4,4,3 Average score: 3.3 4.2 The standard of reporting follows the basic principles of accuracy and fairness. ANALYSIS: The last five years have seen improvements in accuracy and fairness in the mainstream media (alternative papers are lagging behind). They frequently publish apologies, retractions and corrections – an 26 African Media Barometer - Kenya 2005