Radio Nigeria’s Alfred Ajayi Wins Dame Health Reporting Award

By Alfred Ajayi

Alfred Ajayi of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, FRCN, has won the award for the Health Reporting Category of the 32nd Diamond Awards for Media Excellence, DAME.

At an event which took place in Lagos on Sunday night, his entry entitled “How Anambra State runs over 630 PHCs with 150 nurses, midwives” was adjudged the best among several entries.

Ajayi who is a Controller News with Radio Nigeria was earlier in November shortlisted as one of the three finalists by a group of 18 erudite judges including academics, journalism administrators, creative consultants and researchers.

His winning entry had earlier won the 2022 Prize for the Professor Chinyere Stella Okunna Ethical Journalism Award in Anambra State in December 2022.

Responding to the DAME honour, Alfred Ajayi appreciated Radio Nigeria for giving him the platform to express himself and explore the media space, promising to keep the flag flying.

“First of all is to give God the glory for this blessing. I am also indebted to Radio Nigeria which provides the platform for this award. It will spur me to work harder towards uplifting the people and uniting the nation”.

Earlier, DAME Trustee, Mr Lanre Idowu, noted that society needs the media for sanity.

Mr Idowu said the annual event which underscores the importance of the media, is also to encourage the culture of appreciating the media for its critical role in society.

“From the several entries this year, we noticed that journalists have great story ideas but most of them lose focus in the course of executing their ideas. That’s why some categories were stepped down and are not awarded tonight.”

“We should pay greater attention to the emergence of AI. There should be collective efforts to sustain standard and quality of the media in Nigeria.”

“There’s a lot to engage all of us who care about standards, the media and the society,” Mr Idowu said.

FRCN was the only radio station with a winning entry while all other awards were won by print and online media outlets.

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