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NIGERIA`S MEDIA WATCHDOG
Diamond Publications Limited is a dynamic publishing company that has distinguished itself in magazine and book publishing since its incorporation in 1989. Its main products are focused on the Nigerian media.
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Press Ombudsman: Watching the watchdog
 A historic landmark was recorded by the Nigerian media on July 7, 2009 when it formally presented a Press Ombudsman in Lagos. It is the effort of the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association of Nigeria (NPAN) led by Chief Ajibola Ogunshola, chairman of the Punch Newspapers to restore sanity in the industry. The office began operations in June this year.
The NPAN appointed Justice Moronkeji Onalaja, Chairman, Council of Legal Education as the Ombudsman. He retired from the Court of Appeal in 2004.
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The unveiling of the Ombudsman's Office was historic because it was the first time in 150 years of newspaper publishing in Nigeria that such a private agency, with a mandate to improve on the ethics and invariably standards of journalism would be established.
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The media has come under severe criticism by veterans and other stakeholders over various ethical infractions. They are worried that the development would rubbish the legacies of the Herbert Macaulays the Ernest Okolis, MCK Ajuluchukwus, Gbolabo Ogunsanwos, Henry Odukomayas, Lateef Jakandes, Alade Odunewus, among other media icons.
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Day for the acclaimed and thinking journalist
 Proprietors and editors of newspapers and magazines in Nigeria, eminent Nigerians from the legal, business and arts world gathered on July 16 at Terra Kulture, Victoria Island, Lagos for the launch of two books written by Mr. Lanre Idowu, CEO, Diamond Publications Limited. The media and its associates had enough reasons during this occasion to celebrate their own.
The books: The Popular is Seldom Correct and Bridges of Memory, were presented to a thrilled audience led by Mr. Sam Amuka-Pemu, OON, fnge, publisher of Vanguard newspapers. Demands for these promising books followed almost immediately as the launchers, booksellers and other publics in attendence commended Mr. Idowu. While buying some copies, a well-wisher announced Mr. Lanre Idowu succinctly as a journalist revered for his tireless efforts to sustain high media standards, writing vigorously on topical issues about governance, media, and society.
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A challenge on media values, leadership
 The bibliography on the sociology of the Nigerian media and the contributions of journalists to the making of Nigeria and the journalism profession in contemporary times is further enriched by the publication of Lanre Idowu's The Popular is Seldom Correct which is a collection of his selected writings between 1984 and 2009, on a broad range of subjects which the author has chosen to classify as “governance, media and democracy.” Lanre Idowu is a member of the young generation that served as foot-soldiers during the season of renaissance in Nigerian journalism in the early 80s up till the 90s, when the challenges of military rule occasioned great media activity and vibrancy. It was a great moment to be a journalist in Nigeria as the media struggled with official intolerance and repression, and sought to reflect the people's growing impatience with military despotism.
Most of the members of the youth wing of that renaissance are now in their fifties, and whereas there are some among them who have moved on to other things: entrepreneurship, sojourn abroad, new career lines, there are a few like Lanre Idowu who have remained active within the profession, and are witnesses to a new media technology and frontier, democratization, and issues of ethics, productivity, cost, and professionalism in a new age.
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A Writer and his memories
 We are all memories. As individuals and communities, the memories we prefer to keep and the ones we choose to delete say so much about who we are. There are some memories we want to beat back because they are full of anguish. There are some we cherish because they remind us of some pleasant moments in our lives. We, therefore, discount the necessity of memory at our own peril.
Milan Kundera, one of the most gifted novelists and clear-headed literary theorists, once said, in a conversation with Philip Roth, that the great private problem of mankind is death. Not death as extinction of our beings, but death as the loss of the self.
In case you still don't get the full range of Kundera's musing, let me press into urgent service the famous South African Cleric, Desmond Tutu, winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize. In his enchanting introduction to Reflections in Prison, a book of essays which Nelson Mandela and his embattled colleagues wrote in Robben Island, he writes: “My identity is linked very intimately to my memory, and relationships would be impossible if memory went. Without memory it would be virtually impossible to learn: we could not learn from experience, because experience is something remembered.
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 Estimating Your ERA, Precisely
When last we met at this virtual error correcting clinic which, after 14 years, we may now formally christen Righting Clinic, we were saying that everybody who writes can estimate his or her own Error Righting Ability, ERA, for short. Well, estimating is something we can do generally or specifically. We may estimate with either words or numbers: With words we “judge” or “appreciate;” and with numbers we “count” or calculate.” Estimating with numbers is a matter of precision, and it takes the form of scoring or allocating marks to something that we do. But, first, let us complete our unfinished business.
Of the five sentences that we had used in the July issue of MR to demonstrate how we can estimate our ERA, we were able to examine four, leaving the fifth sentence, which we described as “a rocker”! We shall now complete that unfinished business by examining Sentence 5, and, thereafter, move on to the procedure you could adopt for scoring your ERA.
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Occultists in government
The ongoing oath-taking saga in Ogun State has, despite its varied versions, helped to throw light on the character and mentality of many members of the nation's governing class. When a national newspaper published the image of one of the states lawmakers, Wale Alausa, in stark nakedness, purportedly taking an oath in a shrine, many had thought that it could not have been real.
But Alausa himself later confirmed that what people saw was not a fantasy. According to stories from the political camp of Governor Gbenga Daniel, which reportedly released the photograph for publication, Alausa, a member of a group of legislators called G-15, that is intent on impeaching the embattled governor, took the oath in company with other legislators to assure one another of absolute commitment to their plot.
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Vanguard, Tuesday, July 21, 2009
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