Media Response to Public Criticism of Corruption in the Media Allegations of unethical or unprofessional conduct against the media in Nigeria are widespread and very disturbing. While some of the allegations and criticisms may be justified, some of the responses by the media community have become a matter of great concern to human rights and freedom of expression campaigners. Some of the responses, although well-intentioned, are in my view, inappropriate responses to the situation because rather than solve the problem, have tended to cause other problems of their own, perhaps, even more far-reaching than the original problem. For instance, a few years ago, the Nigeria Union of Journalists(NUJ) initiated a controversial piece of legislation in Parliament called The Journalism Enhancement Bill, by which it sought to regulate the media industry and enforce a code of practice. Some of the features of this piece of legislation are that only persons registered with the Union would be entitled to practice journalism in Nigeria and to be registered, a person much have attained a minimum educational qualification, which is a University degree or its equivalent. Such a response violates the right of other people to freedom of expression. What the journalist does is simply to gather, process, publish or disseminate information. The right to do these things is a right guaranteed to all persons in the Nigerian Constitution, as in most national constitutions, as the fundamental right to freedom of expression. It is also a right guaranteed and protected for all persons under international human rights law by a variety of international and regional human rights instruments. The enjoyment of this right is not predicated by any of these instruments upon attainment of any qualification or membership of any association. The freedom journalists enjoy or are supposed to enjoy in the performance of their functions derives legal backing from these constitutional and human rights law provisions. The only difference between a journalist and every other member of the society, who may wish to perform these functions, is that the journalist does these things more or less on a regular basis and for payment. This does not in any way lessen the right of every other member of society to freely do these things.