It is a known fact that the need for organisations in Nigeria to be more socially responsible to communities around them has witnessed some growth, as several organisations are responding positively in different ways to engaging its external stakeholders.

In doing this, they are not just providing support on a general scale; they are also doing segmented engagement support and giving back to society.

In engaging with varied stakeholders within their business areas, using Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) or sustainability projects, the media has been seen as a critical stakeholder.

While some business concerns organise training for journalists, others have instituted professional reward system for media practitioners.

In doing this, these corporate establishments often claim they are doing it because of the crucial role the media play in the growth of their businesses and in making a better society.

Many media practitioners have also come to embrace the various reward systems, because of their impact on the society as well as countering the narrative that journalists in Nigeria engage in thankless job despite the vital role they play in ensuring accountability, keeping the people informed and setting agenda for the society.

And no doubt, some of the awards have supported the industry to serve the society better.

However, over the years, some of these awards have disappeared, especially those that reward critical reporting.

And they include Promasidor Quill Awards, Nigerian Breweries Plc’s Golden Pen Awards, Peak Milk Nutrition Awards and CNN/MultiChoice African Journalist of the Year Award, Nigeria Academy of Science, and Rotary Humanitarian Media Award to mention a few.

This is despite the society keeps demanding from the media to do more with some of the challenges the country is grappling with attributed to the media not playing its critical role.

Ironically, some of these corporate organisations still sustain awards and reward system they had instituted earlier. In some instances, it is not just that the awards targeted at other critical sectors like teaching profession are sustained but also these companies have increased the perks that come with winning the awards.

Lots of journalists who have done quality reports usually look forward to participating in these awards. They see the opportunity not only as targeted at appreciating the works done but also of the prestige, monetary rewards among other perks that come with them.

For instance, aside from the monetary rewards that usually come handy for many journalists to meet some personal needs, there are usually working tools and training as complement for winning some of the awards.

The Quill Awards sponsored by Promasidor Nigeria comes with training in Nigeria and the United Kingdom. The winner of each of the five categories get enrolled for a six month training in Lagos Business School, now Pan Atlantic University while the overall winner gets enrolled for a six weeks training in the United Kingdom. Also, each of the category winners goes home with high-end laptops while the photojournalist goes with a high-end camera.

Of note is the fact that majority of the awards that have been rested were those instituted to encourage and appreciate journalists and not those awards meant to better project specific brands and products through amassing more publicity, especially if the criteria for winning entries are put on the spotlight.

Meanwhile, some of the reward systems instituted for media practitioners like Nestle Media award, which is still running, only commend journalists that copiously report activities of Nestle Nigeria, its products and brands, rather than critical issues of concerns to the society or meant to drive developmental and behavioural changes.

But speaking on the Nestle Media Award, the Corporate Communication and Sustainability Lead of Nestle Nigeria, Victoria Uwadoka, said the Nestle Media Awards was instituted to complete the circle of the company’s engagement with the media, which includes the Nestle Advancing Nutrition, Health, and Environmental Awareness through the Media, a training programme, which the company runs annually in collaboration with the Lagos Business School’s Sustainability Centre.

“This training has been going on for the past four years. We held the fourth edition in 2023 and we want to thank all the journalists who registered for the training. So, the training really looks at equipping the media with research skills, writing skills, and also showing them ways that they can promote their personal brands and then their stories to the right audiences. So, the training is really how to focus their reporting towards a solution’s point of view, not just about the problem.

“Thus the Nestle Media Awards comes to celebrate those who have excelled in these areas and also celebrate the journalists who have worked with Nestle through the year by writing stories and making the efforts, and research and all of that. So, that is what the media award was set up for.”

Sharing his experience of the impact of one of the awards on his career growth, Kunle Falayi, who was the overall winner of one of the editions of the Quill Awards, said: “It is easy to trace the trajectory of my career up to this point to winning the Quill Awards in 2014. To make it clear that this is no exaggeration, let’s look at this way. When I joined the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in 2018, my multimedia skills were some of the vital points that put my foot in the door. I only got those skills because of the training I got in the United Kingdom (UK) as a prize attached to winning the Quill Awards a few years prior in 2014.”

He disclosed that the multimedia training opened my eyes to the different directions he could take my career. He stated that his being a data journalist at one of the largest newspaper networks in the United States of America (USA) is a culmination of that journey.

On the value the award added to him professionally, Falayi said recognition and more often than not, that combines with verifiable impact of a journalist’s work to open doors. “I am incredibly thankful for the skills that award enabled me to acquire as well as the connections I made. Some of that connection was partly instrumental to recommending me for admission into an Ivy League university. I’m sure you now get the full picture of how much impact the award had on me professionally.”

With the impact the award had on his skill and career growth, how does he feel that the award has been rested, Falayi observed that it is a loss to the media industry in Nigeria which is difficult to quantify.

“Even though as journalists we are reluctant to promote organisations, it would not be an undue accolade to say what Promasidor’s Quill Awards did for journalists over the years it ran was unrivalled. It isn’t in my place to question the corporate decision that led to the awards being rested. So, the best one can do at this point is to appreciate the recognition of the importance of good journalism for which the award was created.”

In 2018, to announce that it was discontinuing with its award, in a joint statement, CNN and MultiChoice, noted: “Following a thorough review of the African Journalist Awards, CNN and MultiChoice have come to the difficult decision to not continue the awards. While we remain committed to championing quality journalism in the future, continuing a traditional awards programme of this scale was no longer sustainable.

“We have been immensely proud to celebrate African journalism through this awards format over the last 20 years and honoured to meet and support the many inspiring young journalists who have since grown and developed their careers over the years. We thank the many judges, companies and institutions who have supported the awards during this time.”

Attempts to get some of the corporate organisations speak on why they rested the award, especially those that discontinued the awards abruptly, with no concrete information on the stoppage, were not successful.

The Corporate Affairs personnel of Promasidor Nigeria and Nigerian Breweries Plc refused to respond to the enquiries sent to them on the stopped award and the chances of it being resuscitated in the coming days.

Similarly, though MultiChoice provided a public announcement when it discontinued the award in 2018, but when the corporate affairs department of MultiChoice Nigeria was contacted on the likelihood of the award returning, there was no reply.