The Nation sets record at DAME

With two prizes and an awards record, The Nation had a good outing on Saturday at the 27th Diamond Awards for Media Excellence (DAME) in Lagos.

Serial award-winning Associate Editor Olatunji Ololade clinched the Nestle Nigeria Plc Prize for Nutrition Reporting, becoming the first awardee to win a DAME prize eight times and in five categories.

Ololade’s three-part entry in the Nutrition Reporting category, titled “Dangerous meat, toxic water (1)”, “Dangerous meat, toxic water (2)” and “Deadly meat in abattoirs (3)”, was published on August 12, 2017 and August 19, 2017.

Other nominees in the Nutrition Reporting category are The Nation’s Medinat Olere Kanabe and New Telegraph’sAppolonia Adeyemi.

Kanabe’s entry, “Weight loss could be harmful”, published on December 10, 2017, earned her a second runner-up place behind Adeyemi.

Multiple award winner and Senior Judicial Correspondent Joseph Jibueze increased his DAME prizes haul to five by winning the Judicial Reporting category.

Jibueze’s entry, titled: “Frustrated litigants groan over endless appeals”, was published on December 29, 2017.

Punch’s Oladimeji Ramon and The Nation’s Senior Judicial Correspondent Eric Ikhilae were first and second runners up in the Judicial Reporting category won by Jibueze.

This newspaper also got nominations in other categories, including Agriculture Reporting in which The Nation’smultiple-award winning Assistant Editor Sina Fadare was first runner-up.

The Nation Editor Gbenga Omotoso was the first runner-up in Informed Commentary. Political Editor Emmanuel Oladesu was runner-up.

Omotoso was also the first runner up in Editor of the Year category.

The Nation also came as first runner-up in the Newspaper of the Year category.

The paper won or was runner-up in nine out of 15 categories.

Emeritus professor of mass communication and veteran columnist Prof. Olatunji Dare and former editor in chief of Newswatch magazine, Raymond Ekpu, were named Lifetime Achievement awardees.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Diamond Publications Limited Mr. Lanre Idowu, described all the nominees as winners, saying the objective of the award was to deepen the culture of professionalism in Nigerian journalism.

Idowu urged the media not to “join the purveyors of fake news” and challenged journalists to promote factual unbiased reporting in the build-up to the 2019 polls.

“In this season of political campaigns, the media needs to be more even-handed in their assessment of political actors and their messages. They need to identify the issues early and seek clear answers from the candidates,” he said.

The Punch won the Best Designed Newspaper.

The prize for Editorial Cartooning went to Daily Trust’s Mustapha Bulama for his September 2, 2017 entry “Hate Speech”.

The Punch’s Saheed Olugbon won the News Photography category with his “Traders at Ojuwoye Market” published on July 3, 2017.

“The Punch” came first in the Agriculture Reporting category with Kunle Falayi’s September 9, 2017 entry titled: “Rice farmers bemoan fate as 38 million hectares of land waste away”.

Samson Folarin of The Punch won the prize in the Lagos Reporting category. His entry, “VIS men accused of burning impounded car in Lagos”, was published on March 23, 24, 29, 30, April 3, and November 20, 2017.

The paper won in the Sports Reporting category with Eric Dumo’s “Gold in the midst of clay: Remarkable stories of female athletes shaming disabilities, published on April 1, 2017.

Eniola Akinkuotu of The Punch won the Child Friendly reporting category. His story, “How stigma, government policies cause 60,000 HIV deaths annually, was published on December 27, 2017.

Tribune clinched the Editorial Writing prize with an entry titled: “Being candid on Buhari’s absence”, published on February 17, 2017.

Lekan Sote’s “Towards making Nigeria a nation”, published on June 7, 2017 in “The Punch”, beat Omotoso’s “Atiku visits Obasanjo” and Oladesu’s “The journey to nationhood” to second and third runner up.

The International Center for Investigative Reporting (ICIR) was the winner in the Investigative Reporting category.

Its entry was titled “Ghost hospitals, expired drugs, leaking roofs, waterlogged drug stores…the multi-million naira health centres in the Southeast are in tatters”.

The Punch, with nine awards, won the Newspaper of the Year and its Editor Martin Ayankola Editor of the Year.