MAJI trains journalists on data analysis

Emmanuel Nlewedum, Port Harcourt

A non-governmental organisation, Media Awareness and Justice Initiative, MAJI, in collaboration with United States Consulate – Lagos over the weekend trained media practitioners, members of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and community based environmental writers on the use of data analysis for professional reportage.

Speaking during the one-day training in Port Harcourt, Executive Director of MAJI, Onyekachi Okoro titled Citizen Science for Newsroom Project said the training was intended to equip journalists with the basic rudiments of investigative reporting, data collection and analysis.

He said the event was also aimed at identifying major challenges faced by journalists in the use of data for effective media reporting, and also train media practitioners who are seen as not very experienced on how to use data and as well get field experiences to improve their work.

Our Correspondent reports that participants were also introduced to the key components of the projects which included development of the app that Journalists can download in their phones and have access to relevant data.

Okoro said, “We also engaged with stakeholders to also identify the approaches that will be preferred to ensure that data is used to improve qualitative reporting.

“The project is aimed at training newsroom journalists to be able to use data to tell qualitative news reports. Most stories these days are more of a narrative style reporting approach that is based on key witness interviews, and we feel that such reports will be distorted based on either the passion or affiliation of the person that was interviewed.

“For us, the usage of data is paramount, it is a key because it will give independence to journalists, it provides professionalism and to tell stories that affect the environment, communities, lives and also affect the wellbeing of the social structure of Rivers State, Niger Delta and Nigeria at large,” he said.

Some of the high points of the training was the elements and techniques of Data Sharing as against fake news and unverifiable data sources in news reporting.