Diamond Award for Media Excellence, DAME, has over the years distinguished itself as a special annual event where some media practitioners are celebrated and rewarded for their outstanding works. The importance of the recognition that comes with the award is underscored by the spirited efforts by journalists to be named recipients.
In this interview with SAKIBU OLOKOJOBI, the brain behind DAME, Mr. Lanre Idowu, speaks about the essence of the awards, the journey so far and how fulfilled he is.
He also bares his mind on some of the major challenges confronting the media in Nigeria and the way out. Excerpts:
You started DAME in 1991. How has the journey been so far? Have you met your goal(s) of setting it up?
This is the 28th year of setting it up and the 28th edition will hold this year God willing. The journey so far? Mixed blessings; bitter-sweet. Have we achieved our purpose? I think so. What did we set out to do, really? We set out to promote responsible journalism; we set out to extol excellence; we set out to lift the media up and say this is an important agent of national development that must be celebrated. The media, we celebrate everybody. Sometimes, I think we defeat ourselves psychologically – may be some complex. I’m not advocating that you should be making noise about yourself, turn yourself to celebrity on the pages of your newspaper. But crucial things happen in the media that affect the media; it is in our own enlightened self interest to discuss them, celebrate them when they merit it. We put them aside because of complex or false modesty. Yes, with DAME, we set out to celebrate excellence and say that professionals who make it their business on a daily basis to interpret happenings, to bring the world close to you, to make you have a good understanding of what is happening, are performing an important duty that is crucial to the development of the country. We call them development agents. So, it is not too much in a year to have a special day and showcase them and say Thank You. This is the reward.
The acknowledgement is great. It is better when you can add some token of appreciation by way of a cheque or sometimes, a laptop or some tools that you can use to do your work.
It is not as if we have some money kept somewhere where we just bring it out. We rely on other partners in the society who share the view that the media is an important industry; that the media professionals are doing onerous tasks and they deserve a pat on the back. We call them out to let’s have dinner: Let’s celebrate you, let’s showcase your work and say thank you for job well done. This is to encourage you and for as long as you are on that path, you will continue to be celebrated. It will continue to be well with you. That’s what DAME is all about.
Has it been easy? No, no, no, no, no, no! We started with eight categories in 1991. We announced it in 1991, but the first edition was on 20th of May 1992. So, this is the 28th years; ubroken. When are we going to do it this year, I don’t know because we don’t have all those things we require to do it the way we would like to do it. But we plan to do it in December. What shape it will take? Fingers crossed. Sponsors are not as forthcoming as before. We have to be open. There is nothing to hide. Being able to get money tied to a particular award is just one side of it. What about the event itself. We are still going to organise that. A sponsor may want to give you something for the award but you still need to look for all sort of funding for the event. Like I said, funding has been very challenging, especially this year. But we are still on it.
One would have thought that having come this far, you would have found a way around that.
That is what it ought to be, but Nigeria is a peculiar country. Nigeria as a country is broke. If Nigeria were a business concern, it would have been declared bankrupt. So, people have challenges, people have targets that they cannot meet and they look for areas to prune down, they prune down sponsorship. May be someone has a budget of N3 billion and suddenly he has N100 million. That is bound to have its effect. There are people that ordinarily you would think money is not a big deal, but the truth is that they are all struggling. Or in some cases, their commitment is elsewhere. So, it is a two way thing. We are however committed to it.
DAME is our own modest way to help push the dreams of some professionals. As I said, it’s been better-sweet. We are human beings, so, sometimes, you get tired, yet, we keep pushing.
DAME is an important project for us; it’s our star project and we’ll continue to nurture it; we hope we would have more partners who can help us to consolidate the gains that we have made. We still have a number of initiatives. Infact, there is a book we are doing on all the winners. We are still collating; it’s in the works. Not for this year. I think we have done up to the 25th year. We are updating. It will be a good reference material.
I must say that DAME is also very discriminatory in the choice of partners. There are some people we don’t touch. Let me not mention names, but there is a lawyer a few years back, who offered us very good money for the DAME project, however his antecedents disqualified him. So, as politely as possible, we turned him down.
What are the criteria for choosing your partners or donors as the case may be?
The basic thing is that you believe in a strong, free, responsible media. That is the main thing you will need. And we see your antecedents. In some cases we approach people and in some other cases, others approach us. It’s a two way thing. If you look at the list of our supporters – we work with UNICEF; they’ve been with us for about 15 years. Of course we know what UNICEF does. It is committed to the welfare of children. We are comfortable working with a number of media organisations also. There are some that are endowed; those ones that have passed away. There is a category, Judicial Reporting, sponsored by Justice Onalaja. He made provision that even in his death it should be sustained. We have one for Tunji Oseni. Tunji Oseni is gone now; he was one of us. We were like minds. A few others have passed on and may be the families cannot sustain them. There are a few other institutional sponsors. News Agency of Nigeria is sponsoring. Again, that’s a media player. We are comfortable with that. We have Nestle. They’ve been with us and they are still on. We have some that are steady and reliable partners. We have some who were with us in the past who have not been able to continue, even though some of them have not been able to say no, outrightly.
What are the reasons for their inability to continue?
Some have not been able to say no outrightly, but nothing is forthcoming. So, what do you do? May be the’ve been around for ten years and in the last two years, they’ve been having some challenges. You just don’t discard them or dump them. What it then means is that we now begin to look at some areas or alternative ways of financing the scheme. It means rethinking everything.
The essence of the award is to promote excellence. How would you rate the quality of the materials you receive now compared to the ones in the past?
The thing about DAME is that we are not obliged to give awards because we have received entries. In some instances we don’t give prizes in some categories because we are not satisfied with the quality of the entries. The quality is good in some cases. In some cases, you have very bad entries, and you just have pockets of outstanding materials. So, that reassures you that hope is not lost. In some cases, you struggle to pick the winners because they are so close. Sometimes, the difference is half a mark; sometimes, one point.
How do you determine the winners? What are the processes of picking them?
We have three layers. The judges do their own. We break them into committees. First of all, the screening starts at the secretariat. We screen at the secretariat because it is not everything we receive that we pass to the judges. Some are sorted out and in screening them, they don’t make it. We now look for judges; we look at the work load so that we don’t overburden the judges. Each category is looked at by three people. So, you can find a judge, looking at two categories. Committee A may look at, may be Nutrition Reporting and Child Friendly Reporting. They do their work, they will screen and agree among themselves on, let’s say the best five. They will now bring the result to the secretariat. The secretariat will say, Committee D should peer-review what Committee A had done. The work of Committee D, may be Sports Reporting and Health. We now turn it around. They look at the works of Committee A. Of course, there are parameters they would use. They don’t want to know how the other committee ranked the best five; they would say on the basis of what they have seen, this is how they rank the entries. It is only the secretariat that has the knowledge of how Committee A ranked the entries. After that, we have a general meeting, where we share with them what Committee A recommended. If they say Entry 7 is the best. We ask them to defend what they have done. The one that has peer-reviewed may say that we agree that that entry that Committee A picked is a strong entry, but the one that we (Committee D) have picked is stronger for x, y, z reasons. We spend about two days listening. That is where my own work comes in. I sit down there just listening as the argument goes back and forth. Sometimes the first committee agrees and says, we didn’t look at it that way. Once that is sorted out, we pass it to the trustees.
I wear two caps. I represent the trustees during the discussions and when the trustees are meeting, I represent the judges to convey their feelings. But most of the time, the trustees will uphold the recommendations of the judges. Only on two or three occasions they had had cause to say, “Can you look at this thing again?” But on those two or three occasions, we upheld the position of the judges once. No judge knows the committee where he would serve until we tell him or her. So, it’s fun. And also, they don’t know where the publication is from. There are ways we mask these things. Not that that mattered anyway because they (judges) are independent minded. It’s a lot of work. That’s why we don’t have any controversy over our decisions. If you get the DAME, it is well deserved.
You once said that you want DAME to be the best and not necessarily the biggest. Would you say you have achieved that?
You can say that you want to be the biggest award because you want to give 50 prizes a year. That is not our interest. If we give ten, that is what we feel that should be given. As I said earlier, we are not obliged to give prizes just because there are sponsors. I’ll give an example. In Insurance, for about two years, we couldn’t give the prizes. The money was there, but we didn’t have anything good enough in terms of entries. What we did was to organise a training and a workshop for correspondents. The following year, we were able to find some winners. That’s why I said we look for partners – those who have genuine interest in developing the capacity of journalists. We do training also. But as I said, it is about how you are able to persuade other people to buy into it. Some people have money, but they don’t believe in what you are doing. Some will give cash prizes. That is not what we believe would be in the overall interest of the industry. For us, it is not an ego thing. I don’t have to do this thing. We are doing it because we believe we are rendering an important service. We thank those who had bought into the vision. We also look forward to more collaboration, more serious minded long term partners.
We now have so many organisations organising different awards. Does DAME feel threatened?
DAME is not threatened at all. DAME is DAME. There is Pulitzer Award. Pulitzer is not the only media award in the West. We do our own thing our way. That is why I said if you get DAME, it is well deserved. Who is a Dame. Even if you look at it in a feminine term, it is someone who is distinguished; someone who stands out; majestic; someone who is known for the finest qualities. When you get a DAME, you’re named a Dame. Ah, no be moinmoin o! (laughs). That means you are someone who is accomplished in every respect; somebody of high taste; somebody of good breeding. You have academics, you have professionals. Everybody is looking at your work and saying this person is deserving. We have academics, we have professionals and everybody looking at your work and saying, “Hey, this person is deserving.” When we say someone does not deserve too, some are not happy. But we don’t go into explanations. We just explain at the presentation why we are not giving it. The parameters are clear. What we are looking for is not the length of your story.
But how do you feel seeing other organisers giving out as much as N1 million or N2 million? You don’t give up to that.
We are not bothered. The best we give is N200, 000. It is not about the cash prize. I have a personal example. It is not about the money. There was a time I was working somewhere and I did well. We didn’t have media award like this. The management gave me a letter of commendation and also said there was a cash prize. I rejected the cash prize. I said I didn’t need it, that the letter of commendation was okay. They said no, I must have the cash prize. When they insisted, I collected it and gave it to the typist in the pool. I told him, “I guess you would need this.” It wasn’t that I was rich, I just didn’t want it. I was happy with the letter. I know of somebody who won the DAME in one year and donated the money to charity. There are some, the money is not a big deal. To some, the money can help. Someone said he used the money he got to pay for something, but the recognition has opened doors for many. Some have gone abroad for different exchange programmes. There was a time we were asked to right a confidential report on one or two people, which we did and they have gone on international grants. So, it’s important. And for those who are committed professionals, it is some recognition that can be helpful in different ways.
Pulitzer, how much do you think they give? There are some awards that have come up. Are you saying we should give awards like NLNG is doing? Are we in the same business? If NLNG wants to partner with us and organise awards and take it to that level, it is welcome. I will be the happiest man on earth. All we are just trying to do is to strengthen the institution, strengthen the capacity to stay focused.
Few years ago, the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism honoured you with an award for your contributions to the growth of journalism. What does the award mean to you?
I was humbled; very humbled. That was one of the greatest surprises in my career. I was not expecting it. Infact, what I told them was that I was very humbled. I was at home in bed and my i-pad was beside me. I picked it and saw the message. I said to myself: Is this a joke or something? My wife was with me, I didn’t tell her. I put the message aside and later in the day, I checked again and I said, “I’m not old now. This lifetime award is for old people, what is their problem.” Eventually, I told her. She said, “Very nice. You are going to accept it because I know you are a very awkward man, you may say you are not going to accept it.” I said, “yes ma.” My intention was to just thank them and politely decline. But I accepted it because it is a platform that I respect. I was not a DAME judge, but I was a judge to Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism. We were in our 14th year when they started. The brain behind it, Dapo Olorunyomi, fantastic human being, my friend, my professional colleague; he is someone I have tremendous respect for and it is mutual. When he was trying to do that, I wasn’t threatened at all. Gladly, I opened my door, I supported him for about three or four years before I left. I was glad to help him nurture the award. Your project is your project. Nobody can clone what you are doing. We don’t even have enough awards. You can have an award just for Health Reporting; Photography; Radio programme; Internet. So many things. If anybody wants to do that, I can consult for them. I don’t see it as a threat. You cannot replicate DAME. DAME is DAME. It is not all about money like I said. You can give N1 million and people may not feel hot about it. I know somebody who was given an award, not DAME, he didn’t accept it. He said he didn’t enter for it, so why should it come to him. Somebody entered it for him. You earn DAME, we don’t dash people. We don’t do national character.
There are some awards these days that are judged based on voting on the internet. Some people don’t have access to the works of the people they are even voting for. What’s your opinion about this?
Well, there are different ways of assessing entries or picking your winners. What we do is look at published works in a given year. I don’t want to talk about other awards. They know what they are doing and if people are comfortable with it, well. If you know what you are doing, no problem. We are trying to examine; we are trying to weigh the impact, the beauty in the piece of journalistic work not known to the voting public. We are talking about parameters that you can only apply or score when you have read the work. When you are conferred with SAN, there are a number of cases at different levels considered. They look at those things before you earn the silk. They won’t ask us to come and vote. Every programme must have its own rules and yardsticks. We have ours; it works for us. We have a category which you don’t enter for – Newspaper of the Year. We have our way of determining that. Some others have their different ways. They are not wrong, we are not wrong. We do what works for us. What do we do? We look at the entries. Let’s say 20. We don’t only score the individuals, we score the organisations. And so, on the aggregate, we score you on Gold, Silver and Bronze. So, when you produce a winner in a particular category, your newspaper or medium gets scored. If you are a winner, you get three points, if you are the first runner up you get two points and the second runner up gets one point. By the time we do all that, at the end of the day, we are able to say, this particular publication, out of the awards available, has been able to win first place in six, second place in four and third place in three. On the aggregate, it is better than the person that scored four gold, three silver, then bronze. That is how we get our own Newspaper of the Year. We think that is transparent. We think it is easy. Some others may have other things they consider to pick theirs, fine. Once they explain it and people can understand it, fine. Where it s opaque, is where I am suspicious. Once it is transparent, that is their own approach.
Do you have any advice for the media as an industry?
The media is a strong, important industry and we must never do anything to lower public confidence in our platforms and in our products. If anything, we must do everything possible to strengthen it as the voice of the voiceless. We must be able to run it successfully as a business with a social conscience.
*Concluded
