Following a successful 24th edition of the DAME awards for the media recently, Lanre Idowu, CEO, Diamond publications and trustee of the awards, x-rays the events of the night, challenges of running the awards over the years and more. He spoke with Gboyega Alaka.
Dame literally shot down about two categories of awards this year; what were these categories and were the entries so bad?
I believe you are talking about the Investigative Reporter of the Year Award category, and the Political Reporting category. When we talk about investigative reporting, it is supposed to be like the most challenging in the print category. Incidentally, the number of entries for the investigative reporting category was actually second only to Informed Commentaries. The committee that looked into that category, shortlisted five entries; then another committee, which is like a peer review committee looked through those five and picked three. And when it came for general discussions, we found out that there were still some gaps, and those gaps were serious enough that we did not feel in all honesty that we should give out any award in that category. The same goes with Political Reporting. We felt that they didn’t break new grounds. They weren’t telling us anything new or special. Reporters were telling us very much what everybody already knew and it was more about putting it in elevated language. And then there were just too much of editorialising. They were just telling us their own views. Yes we need some analysing in reporting, but at the same time, it was all common-place information.
Could it be that the reporters got lazy or that they were biased and simply pitched their camp with their favourite?
I think it’s a combination of all these. The reporters failed to interrogate the status quo, so to speak. Essentially, when you talk about investigation, there are two critical areas: the hows and the whys. The more answers you get to your ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions, the more you’re able to enrich your work and make it more insightful. But of course this is not the first time we’re shooting down certain award categories; and the idea is that we are not compelled to give an award for the sake of giving an award. We want to be sure that anyone that we say is a winner in that category is truly deserving of that title.
But the Wole Soyinka Award for Investigative Journalism took place a few days after the DAME and produced winners, would that be because they were trapped?
I cannot speak for them. Besides, I don’t know the entries that they received. I have sat on the panel before and I know that they’re very thorough. Maybe if I see the winning work, then I might be able to understand why it won.
Investigative reporting might seem like the most difficult to handle for journalists; why is this so and what tips would you offer aspiring winners?
Without doubt it is the most challenging. We do something annually, which we call ‘Widening the Pools of Excellence Workshop’; we’ve done it for two years and interestingly, two of the major supporters of the workshop are The Nation and The Punch. What we do there is to actually take people on what we see as deficiencies in the previous year’s exercise. We’re going to do that by the grace of God in the New Year. We look out for the active players and we organise a retraining workshop, where first of all, we remind them of the fundamentals of reporting and then break them into groups and take them into further nitty-gritty that we saw were lacking in the previous entries. You will also recall that I said that the Insurance Reporting prize was not given for many years, because we just could not find a winner. But the winner this year has won it about four years back; even in those years that we didn’t award it, she was always sending in entries. But she attended that retraining workshop and I’m sure part of what she learnt at that training helped her to get back to winning ways. The whole idea is to help our craft get better, to help journalists put up their best and ensure that those roles they need to be playing are not overlooked.
Could the dearth of quality investigative reporting also be because a lot of people are simply trying to save their neck and not fish too deep into dangerous waters?
There is no story that is worth dying for. But having said that, some of these shortcomings are not so much about danger, but more about not pushing enough or maybe not understanding what they should be looking for. In some of these stories, you find out that the writer starts well, but after sometime, they’re relapsing. Some don’t know the right thing to look out for; and that needs nurturing in-house, as well as reading wide. What is the story about? What is the approach to the story? Maybe we shouldn’t blame the reporters alone; we must also talk to their news managers. I believe media houses still have their editorial meetings, where you discuss story ideas before going after them. We’ve had some conferences, where we encouraged people to share story ideas, but we’ve found out that people are not so welcoming of this because they believe their colleagues would steal their ideas. But overtime, we have been able to let them realise that when you share ideas, you learn more. The other person you’re sharing with may have some angles that you may not be aware of but which may be vital to the success of the story. Somebody can question your premise and by the time you listen to different shades of opinion and are able to harness them, you find out that they help you to unleash the investigative exercise. There is nothing wrong with collaborating, but in our own case, we give the award to the media house once the writers are more than two.
What do you make of the ongoing tussle between the social media and the traditional media?
What is the threat? The threat is that once upon a time, to break news, you have to wait on the NTA network news at 9 o’clock, but that is not the case anymore because things are happening and getting posted online immediately. Good enough, every mainstream media now has a web presence; so for me the web is there to break news and the print is there to give you more substance and understanding of the news. So I see more opportunities; for engagements, for specialisation and depth in reporting. I don’t believe the print media will disappear, but for some publications, especially those who are development-oriented, for which the print may not be the most ideal outlet. For instance, Media Review, which we publish at Diamond Publications; of course it’s not going to circulate like your usual traditional print newspapers, so what we are doing is to turn it into an online publication and occasionally do the print version. So the newspapers will just have to do more work. Nobody wants to pick up a newspaper at N150, to read exactly what they have read online.
The DAME Awards night was by all means a beautiful night; how have you managed to sustain it for 24 years?
We started with just eight categories only in the print media. But over the years, we have been building on it. Don’t forget the name: Diamond AWARDS for Media Excellence; so it’s not just one award. Our style is to look for partners in terms of sponsors to support the different categories, to encourage the reporters to continue to improve in the different categories. So we categorise the beats and look for sponsors to support the categories. The best thing we would have loved is for somebody or an organisation to endow it in perpetuity, for say X million of naira; but that’s not always easy. So, some people agree to sponsor for a term and observe. But again there is also the question of who are the people or players, who are strong enough to sponsor the award or awards in perpetuity? We run the risk of turning it into a strictly elite thing or a money-bag affair. In DAME, we always look for a linkage between the sponsor and the prize. For example, we have the Editorial Writing category, which my mentor, the late Tunji Oseni endowed for a while before he died; hence it is called the Tunji Oseni Prize for Editorial Writing. He endowed it with some money – not exactly in perpetuity; but we also published a book on him after his demise, and used the seed money – after paying the royalty, to continue the award, because we wanted to continue the prize in his honour. We also have some, like Business Reporting, which Aliko Dangote has endowed for a term. And then we also need judges; we have a collection of academics and veteran journalists who serve as judges. The whole idea is to have a community of believers, who believe in the nobility of the idea; because again, it is essential to keep the nobility of the idea alive, so that the quality of the award is not compromised in any way. And of course we have friends who now and then donate to support the exercise. But we’ve not been lucky to get one sponsor for the whole event.
Some people enter great stories in the wrong categories; do you ever take the liberty to put them in the right categories while sorting?
Yes, we’ve done it once or twice, but it’s part of the responsibility of the writer to read the instruction very carefully and enter stories in the right category. Once a reporter entered a story in the Health category, but the extent of work done was so huge that the judges decided it should go for the investigative reporting category.
You were quite a young man, when you kick-started this awards; what prompted you into the whole exercise?
I was in my late 30s alright, but I had worked at The Daily Times, at The Guardian and at The Democrat – I was a pioneer at the last two; Thisweek Magazine too; and I’d even worked at the USSIS (United States Information Service). But all the while, I had some ideas in mind. I wanted to do a directory of the media; I wanted to do review for the media, because I have always seen the media as a profession, not something you just stumble in and stumble out. At that time too, the debate about how the media should be regulated and co were also going on. So the idea of Media Review was born, the idea DAME was also born. My colleague and friend Taiwo Obe worked with me briefly on the projects before he moved on; but he still shared that passion for the media.
What other thing is Diamond publications into?
Diamond publications is a publishing company. It publishes books, magazines, biographies…. We organise in-house training as well, and do general consultancy for organisations.
Journalists are looking forward to the days when winners will begin to smile home with as much as 1million Naira in cash prizes.?
I wish there were prizes when were younger. We started with N5,000; but it’s not about the cash. I think the idea that you have won is more than the money. But…maybe One million, five million, ten million, I don’t know. Let’s wait and see.
