Prof Iredia Asks NBC to Allow Media Self-Regulate

Prof. Tony Iredia, former director general of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), has appealed for self-regulation of media in Nigeria.

Prof. Iredia made the call while fielding questions on a Live Television on Monday.

Iredia, who was specifically reacting to NBC Bill in the National Assembly frowned at the manner in which the industry regulator, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) is gagging the media practitioners with different regulations and warned that such moves negated the real  essence of media practice in the country.

The former NTA boss said if the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) could be allowed to regulate their practicing members, what stopped the media practitioners not to do same.

According to him, with self-regulation, the media practitioners would be offered opportunity to grow in the industry and then come up with best guiding principles and regulations that would be best suited to them in line with their professional ethics and laws.

He argued that it would be counterproductive if non experts are allowed to regulate the experts already in the field.

‘‘Self-regulation is the best is the best way to go for the media practitioners in Nigeria.  I had wanted us to have self-regulation by media houses, iIt allows the experts to cope up with their best and not subjected to detects of non-experts in NBC.

‘‘You can teach people how to sweep their houses without holding a gun. Let the broadcasters know the nifty-gritty of their job and know what to do and what not to do. That is allowing media ethics to guide them.  They don’t need an outsider to show them the ethics.

‘‘NBC cannot claim to have made all the regulations they made for broadcasters, some of their instructions come from government. One thing that should be noted is that NBC is not answerable to government and should remain so.’’

‘’I feel that we can do so much, there are so much NBC should not be allowed to do as a regulatory body. It is like saying NMA and NBA should not regulate their members, it is like third party. We must draw attention and subject performance of members to test. if we allow NBC to regulate the broadcasters, we will not achieve much.

‘‘In today’s world what is going on is digitization. And this raises the question about what contents are we bringing to table? That what should be happening because content should be the emphasise because we are not producing enough contents.

‘‘Today we complain of the media because the practitioners in the industry have not been given the opportunity to be experts, and the way to make them experts is to enthrone professionalism into the system. Non experts cannot bring that expertise to the media. So, those who are trying to regulate should try to find out what is happening in the system and find out how to get there.

‘’We are saying let the media regulate itself the way other professionals bodies regulate themselves.

If you cannot trust them, why did you put them in place? They should let the media grow to do its job’’, he added.