The Head of Communication for United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Praise Nutakor, has urged journalists in the country to consider specialising in data and statistical reporting.
To her, with rapid advancement of technology, there is greater digitization of data and that it would be imperative for journalists to evolve in order to remain relevant.
According to her, it is increasingly becoming important that journalists continue to improve their knowledge and understanding of statistics, particularly quantitative data, to be able to interpret and present in simple manner to facilitate understanding among non-technical experts.
She explained that data reporting which is part of a system that reports key elements relating to an organization’s performance in order to improve different aspects provides a foundation for implementing better control over an organisation.
Data reporting measures performance and analyses other key elements that can then be shared within the organisation or with the public
The data reporting system is made up of monitoring, converting and deploying data. After observing data trends for a set period of time, the data gathered will be converted into more understandable and precise presentation formats: such as charts, files or graphs.
Once this data report is written, the data is distributed to those parties that need it.
The UNDP Head of Communication mentioned that using data means there is less guesswork about what the facts are, use data to hold politicians/officials accountable, data can help journalists speak truth to power.
One other importance of data journalism includes the fact that data can improve a complex story. Data journalism is the future and data can be used to provide deeper insights into what is happening around us and how it might affect us.
She made the remarks in an interview with the paper, after a two-day successful training program on Data interpretation and communication at Dodowa Forest Hotel in Shai Osudoku District Assembly, in Accra.
Twenty-five selected journalists, including Print, Online, Radio and Television across Eastern, Volta, Central, Western and Greater Accra regions participated in the training workshop.
The participants were taken through topics such as understanding basic statistical methods and terminologies, communicating statistical data, power of data and visual storytelling and development of guidance notes on using data to shape economic and strategic policy.
She was convinced that journalists have been able to understand the basic statistical methods and terminologies and interpret statistical data within the context and disseminate it effectively, since most journalists sometimes misinterpret and misrepresent data out of context, hence the need to train them to improve their knowledge on Data interpretation.
On his part, the Government Statistician, Prof. Samuel K Annim, urged journalists to limit the use of statistical terminologies when reporting statistics and data if possible, for the benefit of non-technical experts.
According to him, one of the fundamental principles of statistics is to prevent misrepresentation and, therefore, urged journalists to use official statistical data from his office rather than what he described as experimental data, which in most cases were not accurate.
The post Journalists urged to specialise in data, statistical reporting appeared first on The Chronicle Online.
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