IMC media award launched
The Independent Media Commission (IMC), Friday 18th November 2011, launched the ‘National Media Award’ at the Commission’s Secretariat at Siaka Stevens Street, Freetown.
In his measurement, the Chairman Guild of Editors, Kelvin Lewis, described the award as challenging and fair competition for excellence, adding that, ‘editors of both the print and electronic media should encourage their reporters to collect guide lines for the competition as IMC wants to make the award a free and fair competition to Journalists. Peter Tiyon, who acts as head Communications Officer of UNISILP, encouraged journalists to specialize in reporting and said he does believe in having to have a degree certificate to become a good journalist, but rather he would like to see journalists with critical minds.
Stephen Douglas, a member of the media award planning committee, who doubles also as the head for Journalists for Human Rights in Sierra Leone, outlined the categories of awards that were dropped from the list on grounds of depicting the level of overlap.
Among the categories dropped were best creative writer, best newspaper columnist, and best report on free health care etc.
Douglas noted further that prizes will be awarded for Excellence in twenty five categories including: Reporting on Agriculture, Environment, Human Rights, Politics, Economy, Education, Investigative reporting, and reporting on Education.
A debate that came up from among journalists is the condition that all practicing journalists should be registered and paid up members of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) if they are to be elligible for the award, which to some, did not go down well at all.
Launching the Media Award 2011, the Commissioner of IMC, Rod Mac-Johnson noted that the reason for the award is to recognize journalists who have exhibited an exceptional devotion to their work through out the past year in the areas of writing and broadcasting of researched stories that provided valuable information to the reading or listening public.
He urged all journalists to take up specialized reporting on the issues of Human Rights stories, women’s issues, and host of others, adding that national award offers the best platform for journalists to diversify their interests.
The dead line for the submission of all entries for the IMC Annual National Media Award is Thursday 15th December 2011.
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