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To date DAME has the honour of being the only awards scheme in Nigeria that covers the media disciplines of Journalism, Broadcasting and Advertising. In organising the awards annually, the DAME Secretariat:
Identifies specific award categories;
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Invites entries from across the nation at a specific period. Such entries can be made by the authors/producers of the works themselves or by interested members of the public;
- Independently monitors year round the performance of the various media, and also enters work for nomination;
- Screens all entries to ensure that specified rules and guidelines are followed;
- Collates data on the nominated work and its author/producer;
- Assembles an independent panel of judges to assess the entries;
- Organises a befitting presentation ceremony;
- Publishes a commemorative edition of Media Review on the winning entries, detailing how and why they won.
The competition is restricted to works produced wholly by Nigerians that appeared in the Nigerian media during the year of assessment. In assessing entries, the judges are expected to lay emphasis on the degree and thoroughness of investigation, the relevance of the work to society, the style of presentation and the impact the work had. If no outstanding work is found in any category, no award is made in that category, rather than settle for anything less than the best.
While its choices of winners have been generally applauded, it has on very few occasions had cause to enter media debates on its operations. One is worthy of reproduction for the issues raised still feature in media discourse.
On January 10, 1994, The Guardian had published in its Media Watch column an article, entitled Media awards on the fireline, which raised issues which tended to assail the integrity of the awards. To be fair, two awards schemes were assessed. DAME, however, felt it was being unfairly corralled into an unfair assessment. Two issues stood out of The Guardian’s article. They ranged from a critique of the mode of picking winners from entries and nominations to the preponderance of winners coming from the Lagos area.
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