Top Ten Stories of 2013; Shape of 2014 News
February 2014
The passage of global icon and former president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela on December 5, 2013, was the most important news story in the Nigerian media in 2013. That’s the verdict of a select group of editors consulted by Media Review to pick the Top Ten News stories of 2013. It is a telling comment on the stature of the freedom fighter who later became president after spending 27 years in jail, that his death engaged media attention for weeks and drew world leaders to his funeral in South Africa. The editors, drawn from five leading newspapers and two online titles, also picked the exchange of letters between former President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Goodluck Jonathan, and Oduahgate: the story of the controversial multimillion armoured cars’ purchase, as joint runners up……..Read More
The Sacking of Lamido Sanusi
March 2014
How come nobody ever told me that the President has the power to suspend (but not to dismiss) the CBN Governor? Has there ever been a case of suspension of a CBN Governor before now, or is Sanusi’s case the first of its kind? Is Sanusi’s suspension well or ill-timed given existing controversies? Will Sanusi be reinstated after a while, or will he transit from suspension to retirement/dismissal in another three months? Is the suspension a due-diligence process to check fiscal recklessness or a reprisal following Sanusi’s whistle-blowing about the reportedly missing $ 20 billion? So many questions! .. Read More
APRIL FULL: DAME Widens the Pools of Journalistic Excellence
April 2014
It was conceived as a labour of love to boost productivity, enhance responsibility and reward enterprise in the media. Year in, year out, the annual Diamond Awards for Media Excellence, now in its 23rd year of operation, has honoured outstanding works from deserving individuals and organizations. This move was borne out of the conviction that such recognition of talent and enterprise would spur winners to greater productivity. This aim has been achieved in the main in the 22 previous editions of DAME, which have produced 450 winners to date as a good number of them have witnessed steady progress in their careers. Some have moved into other areas of public service………Read More
The MEDIA and Boko Haram
May/June 2014
The Boko Haram terror machine has redefined life in Nigeria. True, most of its physical and psychological atrocities have been confined to northern Nigeria but the larger impact on efforts to promote national understanding, cohesion, and development has been nationwide. The National Youth Service Corps scheme, the yearlong programme designed to promote national understanding by exposing Nigerian graduates to realities of a plural Nigeria, for one, is increasingly threatened. Rare are the parents that readily agree to have their children posted to the terror-stricken states to serve, thus weakening the objectives of the scheme…….Read More
2015 GENERAL ELECTIONS - Towards Impactful Reporting
July/August 2014
There is always something delightful in seeing professionals engage in frank dissection of issues of professional concern. There are the knowledgeable ones eager to spar with the trainers; there are those who come with preconceived ideas and are strongly insistent on their positions; there are others who are quite innocent of the larger issues; there are many who genuinely want to learn new approaches to the craft and yet there is a group that sees the whole exercise as an adventure to leave the predictable turmoil of the newsroom. Shades of these groups were present at the two workshops held for journalists in Akure, Ondo state and Ibadan, Oyo state in June and August respectively. Held just days before the Ekiti and Osun governorship elections, the trainings can well be described as necessary editorial diet political reporters needed to consume ahead of next year’s general elections. …..Read More
The 23rd D.A.M.E Honouring Achievement Celebrating Enterprise
November/December 2014
DAME Profiles
Ayodeji Adeyemi – Agriculture Reporting.
Adeyemi Ayodeji is making his third appearance on the DAME podium having won the Sports Reporting prize and the Development Reporting prize in 2011. Ayodeji worked at Victory Echo, a Christian publication, before joining TELL Communications Limited as a Staff Writer in 2006. A 2004 graduate of Economics from University of Ibadan, Ayodeji has been opportune to attend fellowships and training courses in “Economic and Financial Reporting (in Germany), Stock Market Reporting (in Nigeria), and a training on Covering Development and Poverty Reduction (in the United States)……Read More