Premium Times Nigeria, was founded in the year 2011. The company’s aim is to take the issue of Nigeria’s advancement and development seriously.
Premium Times also aims to bring about strong dedication to providing the country, Nigeria, with the kind of media. This kind of media will advocate and air the voice of the people. It will additionally push the country toward development and social rehabilitation.
Helping Nigeria address her various challenges is part of the aim of the new media. Challenges such as educational revolution, cultural rebirth, & economic development. These issues according to Premium Times Nigeria must be analytic, reflective, thoughtful, and empathetic.
This will be without a sense of entitlement or insularity in terms of formalistic processes and content philosophy.
Premium Times Nigeria has the sole purpose of consequently raising the bar for journalism in Nigeria. Its strategy was to publish various types of media, beginning with an internet platform. This strategy is in order to appeal to the majority of its young & middle-class elites. Not just everyone, but those who believe in a better future and social change.
Premium Times Nigeria Mission
Premium Times Nigeria is a Nigerian online daily newspaper that has its headquarters in the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja.
It is a media organization whose mission is to strengthen the democracy of Nigeria and advance people’s socio-economic well-being. Premium Times Nigeria also advocates rights and promotes and enriches cultural practices.
Premium Times Nigeria took it upon itself to advocate for best practices, good governance, transparency, and human rights. All of this is consistent with the ideals that a modern democracy should uphold. Among other things done by the news agency, Investigative journalism is the specialty of Premium Times Newspaper.
Premium Times is quickly establishing itself as the go-to source for balanced and well-researched news and information.
Premium Times Nigeria Audience Target
Their intended audience includes decision-makers in the public and private sectors of the economy. They also target dons in secondary and tertiary institutions, undergraduates and graduates, and the growing urban literati. The investigative, courageous, impartial, and trustworthy journalism of Premium Times is well-known.
Also, it aims to create a popular and reliable news organization that will become a reference point for current journalism. This is by providing fair and well-researched content with the goal of influencing our readers’ opinions.
Awards and Achievements of Premium Times
For “Website/blog of the Year,” Premium Times was a nominee for the 2013 Nigerian Broadcasters Merit Award.
Also, in 2017, Premium Times reporters shared a Pulitzer Prize for their work on the multinational consortium. This was an investigation of the Panama Papers. The Investigation exposed wrongdoing and the use of offshore tax havens by powerful people.
In November 2017, the Global Investigative Journalism Network presented the Global Shining Light Award to Premium Times. This award was for its investigative work on extrajudicial executions in Nigeria’s southeast.
Additionally, it was for Premium Times Nigeria’s investigation into the planning behind the Onitsha Massacre of pro-Biafra supporters.
Premium Times also won the 2021 West African Media Excellence Awards (WAMECA) in Accra, Ghana, in the business reporting category.
Alfred Olufemi, a former employee of Premium Times Nigeria who now works as a freelancer for local, national, and international newspapers, wrote the article.
Premium Times Newspaper Significant Investigations
The winning application delved into the dormant state of three paper factories. Paper factories which experts think have the ability to reduce Nigeria’s cash-draining excessive paper imports regime.
It also revealed how the mills’ privatization processes have failed miserably. Just as well as non-wood alternatives that can aid mill resurrection. This also includes forest resource conservation, particularly in light of climate change concerns.
Among the awards include different nominations for the media organization writers for the African Journalism Award. Also, the media house bagged DAME, Diamond Award for Media Excellence in the year 2021.
Although, over the years, the journalist and the Premium Times have been harassed by officials. On orders from the military, police stormed the newspaper’s headquarters in 2017. The armed force arrested him and a reporter for allegedly defaming the chief of army staff.
Both journalists were released after Premium Times stayed firm. The army eventually disassociated itself from the acts of the chief of staff.
Earlier in his career, Olorunyomi bravely reported on General Sani Abacha’s dictatorship. He was instrumental in laying the groundwork for Nigeria’s current reputation for high-quality, aggressive journalism. He was co-founder and deputy editor-in-chief of The NEWS magazine, as well as Tempo magazine, in 1993.
The latter was released from a secret location near the police headquarters. This caused such upheaval in the regime that even those who were caught reading it were jailed.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Premium Times is a Nigerian newspaper that is now one of the most trusted in the country. It is a model for African investigative journalism and was co-founded by Dapo Olorunyomi.
Many people have called Olorunyomi the “godfather” of Nigerian online journalism. This is because he has dedicated his life to holding the powerful accountable.
The organization’s founders think that the media is the most important of all the institutions in a modern democracy. It can assist in the formation of new communities. Also in the pursuit of a political and social agenda in the interest of a better society and the construction of visions of hope and resistance.
Unfortunately, the media may often go in the opposite direction, dividing people and stifling optimism and vision. At various points throughout their country’s history, the media has played both roles.
