Titilope Fadare, a Correspondent with Premium Times NG, on Saturday bagged the ReportHer Award as the best Nigerian Journalist, who had carved a niche for herself in reporting women-based issues.
This was announced during the maiden edition of the ReportHer Awards in Lagos.
Toun Okewale-Sonaiya, Chief Executive Officer of Women Radio (WFM91.7) and convener of the award ceremony, said the award was meant to celebrate women blazing the trail in female reportage on print, radio, television and digital platforms.
Okewale-Sonaiya noted that the award acknowledged gender-balanced reportage and celebrates media organisations and journalist who had given prime time to women as their male counterparts.
She said that the awards which were in 5 categories :Digital, Radio, Print, Television and best Journalist categories, attracted an award plaque, certificate of excellence and a laptop for each recipient.
According to her, the award ceremony was done in partnership with the UNWomen and support of the Canadian governmnet.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Ene Oshaba of the Blueprint Online media became the first runner up for the award.
For the digital category, Ripples Nigeria emerged the first runner up while Tech Cabal became the overall winner.
Sparkle 92.3fm won as the first runner up in the radio category and Voice of Nigeria (VON) emerged overall winner.
For the print category, Leadership Newspaper became the first runner up while Blueprint Online emerged overall winner.
Africa Independent Television (AIT) won as the first runner up in the Television category while Arise news bagged the overall winner.
“It is an evening of thanksgiving for us at the Women Radio; we appreciate the Nigerian women and media for your continuous and deliberate reporting on gender sensitive issues and inclusion.
” Your works have had profound impact on Nigerian women; you help make the world a wonderful place for the women.
” We celebrate the achievements of our nominees and recognise your invaluable contributions to journalism, women inclusion and the development of our dear nation.
” As we acknowledge the progress we have made through responsible journalism, let us remember the responsibility that comes with being journalist and a broadcaster.
” I acknowledge the contributions of the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ), the UNWomen and the Canadian government, I’m grateful for the support so far,” she said.
In her response, Fadare said “I’m glad and also lost for words at the moment, it feels great to be nominated at first.
“Reporting gander-based issues has been of great interest to me since 2016 when I started, most especially on displacement, gender violence and all.
“I appreciate the Women Radio for this and Premium times for the support enjoyed so far, whenever I need financial support, I always get it.
“We need to do more to spotlight issues relating to women.”
Earlier, one of the judges, Mr Lanre Arogundade, Executive Director, International Press Centre (IPC) disclosed the parametres engaged to pick the winners of the awards.
Arogundade said that the entries attested to the fact that the current generation of journalists were not lazy; they kept producing good reports.
“We got 109 entries for the awards and we are happy to work on all entries. We assessed the entries based on how educating and informative they are. ” We looked at the use of data, sources, as well as how factual and accurate the entries were. We were ethical and critical with our assessment,” he said.