These awards are intended to celebrate the successes of journalists over the past year. The adjudicators made an interesting observation about the quality of the presentations. The chief adjudicators pointed out categorically that the quality was poor. This says a lot about the quality of writing and broadcasting. This should act as a reminder to all journalists in the country that their craft is declining. We should work hard to improve our standard of reporting. These awards are meant to celebrate success which should be measured through the quality of our work.
In the past, MISA has complained about the low turnout of entrants. They have not been able to find an explanation as to why this is the case. This could also explain why the submissions are of low quality. Probably if more people were submitting, there would be better articles competing. Effectively, the adjudicators were saying we did not give out the best among journalists in this country. It is not by coincidence that the adjudicators said this. Some journalists are just not interested in entering for these awards. Their reasons are varied. Some complain about the low prizes that they get at these awards, while others think that the format should be changed. Instead of people submitting their 'best' articles to be judged, they suggest that MISA should put in place a team of adjudicators who will monitor print as well as broadcast media throughout the year and decide on the winners in the different categories independently. Probably this could be food for thought for the media watchdog as it plans for the next awards. MISA should not take the flack for the awards alone. If these awards are to be what we want them to be, all stakeholders should come on board to work towards improving these awards. MISA always calls meetings where they review the awards and ask for suggestions to improve the awards. What has been happening is that journalists just do not turn up at these meetings. But when things do not go the way they want, the same journalists are the first to complain. It is time that journalists and all the other stakeholders come together to improve the awards. As journalists we should have pride in these awards because they celebrate our professional success.
