Every year, media awards for journalists and media workers, have become a constant feature of Nigeria’s media life, just as in developed parts of the world. And in Nigeria, awards have been given and received, both for print and electronic media, and for their workers for different reasons.

All manner of award institutions have emerged, some with high integrity and others with very little recognition, even by those they give their awards. Incidentally, the major reason many award institutions have advanced as motivation for the awards they give has been that they want to help in improving the practice of journalism excellence, both in print and broadcast media. Some others go as far as including advertising and public relations, and other adjuncts of mass communication.

For instance, one of the most outstanding awarding organisations in Nigeria today is Diamond Award for Media Excellence (DAME) with its focus as an annual humanistic scheme designed to encourage media responsibility. With the claim of being the only awards scheme in Nigeria that covers the media disciplines of Journalism, Broadcasting and Advertising, DAME has continued to wax strong with prestigious awards.

Apart from DAME, another prestigious media award institution in the country is Nigerian Media Merit Award (NMMA), which has been on for more than 10 years.

Speaking on NMMA, to which he is chairman, Alade Odunewu, said that the annual awards to media professionals was aimed at promoting excellence in the media and also to foster unity amongst media institutions and the society at large.

Apart from the two above, there are other bodies that have been presenting one form of media awards or the other; coming with their own missions and visions to impact positively on the country’s media practice.

Internationally however, there is CNN Multichoice awards which started in 1995, with its own awards instituted for the whole of Africa. It stated that its mission was to encourage, promote and recognise excellence in African journalism. In one of its statements, the group wrote of its motivation as coming from one of its Regional Directors Edward Boateng. It wrote: “In the early 90s Edward Boateng, then Regional Director of Turner Broadcasting (CNN’s parent company), was travelling around the African continent on business. During his travels he became concerned about the lack of respect journalists received and he decided to try and help them gain recognition for their hard work and commitment.”

One interesting thing about it all is that while many journalists consistently filed in for the award year after year – whether they were winning or not, others have consistently refused to be part of it no matter how much they were urged by either friends, relations and employers, and they have their reasons. For many journalists, who have been consistent in applying for the award every year, they have given their reasons in a recent finding. For instance, it was revealed that many do so because they hoped it would help in opening doors for them in advancing their careers. Some had expected that it would add to their Curriculum Vitae (CV) and, or even help in getting better employments and in attracting scholarships for them.

There are yet others who claimed that putting in for such awards was their own way of trying to build their confidence in the profession. On one hand, they believe that winning the awards will give them more confidence in doing more difficult and unique stories. One the other hand, they believe that even when they do not win, they get a sense of accomplishment that they were rubbed shoulders with the best, as a measuring rode. They therefore claimed that in which ever way, it would spur them on to aim higher in subsequent works.

There are yet others who have put in for awards hoping that it would at least get them a level of being nominated. They believe that being nominated would help them in exposing him by bringing him in contact with de crème la crème of the industry, from where they would draw inspirations. They believe that getting such exposure would definitely impact positively inspire for better future aspirations. Apart this, they also believe they would be exposed to the nitty-gritty that make the great works, and best practices of the profession. Also, a large section of those, who want to always participate, claimed they were looking for opportunities of seeing where great works are dissected, which they believed would help them in knowing how to go about their next work, and how to perfect them.

Because there is always more than one side to every situation, it was therefore not surprising to discover that some journalists have never put in for such awards, and were not even willing to put any one in future.

Some see the awards as waste of time and preoccupation of people who do not have confidence in themselves, but were looking for people to tell them that they were doing alright. They claimed that as long as the general public, which they were serving, reacts to their stories and commend them, that they did not need any armchair critic to tell them whether the were doing fine.

There are journalists who have refused to put in for awards on the grounds that they did not see why they should be the ones applying or submitting stories to be appraised. They argued that any media award institution that is serious about giving awards to deserving journalists should take the pains to look for befitting works. “They should be able to scout the media and find out which works were good and merits and awards.”

However, Lanre Idowu, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of DAME, picked holes with such arguments. According to him, it was not possible for any organisation to cover the whole media industry in Nigeria, from print journalism to the broadcast media and then advertising. Idowu, who is also publisher of Nigeria Media Review (NMR) contended that such monitoring would not be possible even for big government institutions, such as Nigerian Broadcast Commission (NBC) or any other such organisation.

“It is not possible for any group to monitor content of all media outfits in the country. i think the most reasonable thing to do would be to advertise the criteria” he said.

He therefore explained that the three ways through which a work could be submitted to an awards institution. He stated that a journalist could submit his work by himself, tell the organ through which he published his work to put in for the award; or somebody else in society submits for him.

There were some journalists who claimed that the requirements to be met in submitting their works were usually too cumbersome, that they found it difficult to commit themselves to meeting with them.

Interestingly awards have not been for the media alone. Governments and monarchies are known to have done it. In many other disciplines such as engineering, accountancy, medicine, secretarial, law, acting, and teaching, awards have been instituted and people have kept faith with them. Even higher institutions and traditional rulers and communities have also instituted awards and kept faith with them.

There are therefore arguments which claim that if such other institutions and disciplines (many of them drab and colourless) could institute awards and kept faith with, that there was no reason why the media industry (full of glamour) should not institute awards and the people keep faith with it.

Notwithstanding the reasons advanced by many journalists for not participating in these awards, one thing is certain; and that is that these awards will continue to run with winners and losers emerging every year. And journalists with continue to grab headlines year after year with the accompanying glamour, pomp and pageantry. Currently in the running and collecting entries is DAME. Already the CNN/Multichoice award, which is Africa-centric, is already a done deal, with winners and losers emerging.

There is a school of thought that believes however, that award organisation in the country should not just sit back and content themselves with dishing out awards, year after year, without doing much to woo disinterested journalists and media workers. They believe that it should be a case of “the more the merrier”.

They believe that the institutions should find ways to popularize their awards even more than they have at the moment by holding seminars and talk shows across media newsrooms and media houses. They argue that if other disciplines and industries could do so, that the media industry should be able to do better.

It is perhaps in this wise that these words of an expert would make sense: “Awards in the form of orders, medals, decorations, prizes, and titles are ubiquitous in monarchies and republics, private organizations, and not-for-profit and profit-oriented firms. Nevertheless, this kind of nonmaterial extrinsic incentive has been given little attention in the social sciences, including psychology. The demand for awards relies on an individual’s desire for distinction, and the supply of awards is governed by the desire to motivate. The technique of analytic narratives is used to show that a number of empirically testable propositions about awards are consistent with observable data.”