The PUNCH, Nigeria’s most widely read newspaper, again demonstrated its leadership in the media industry on Sunday as it emerged as the Newspaper of the Year at the 16th edition of the Nigeria Media Nite-Out Award.
The newspaper defeated Vanguard Newspaper, The Nation and ThisDay to emerge the winner in the category.
Also, a former Chief Correspondent with The PUNCH, Sunday Aborisade, won the Politics Editor of the Year award at the event held in Ikeja, Lagos.
The Aviation Reporter Award went to Wole Shadare of the Daily Telegraph while the Photo Editor of the Year went to Kazeem Salau of Vanguard.
In the radio category, Bond FM won the Radio Station of the Year while Toke Makinwa of Radio Oniru was named the On-Air Personality of the Year.
Rufai Oseni of Arise TV emerged as the OAP of the Year while Dr Reuben Abati was declared the TV Analyst of the Year.
The Zamfara State Governor, Bello Matawalle, was declared the Governor of the Year at the event, for his impact in the areas of security and youth development and empowerment.
Sufianu Usman, who represented the governor, explained that he was able to use wisdom to tackle the challenge of insecurity in his state.
In her remarks, a Project Manager, Ronke Ogunbufunmi, called on media practitioners to uphold press freedom and also ensure the safety of women in the media.
“Media freedom is crucial to our development of the media and as we work towards the empowerment of women, we must uphold press freedom. Press and media safety is part of media freedom and journalism safety which talks about women’s safety dealing with confidential sources,” she said.
