You are here:

Penplusbytes to train Financial Journalists on Data Journalism

ifej

Penplusbytes, in partnership with the Institute of Financial and Economic Journalists (IFEJ) and Highway Africa Centre, will on Friday April 29, 2016 train, for the first time, financial and economic reporters on Data Journalism at the New Media Hub in Accra.

This training will offer financial journalists in Ghana the opportunity to develop well-crafted and easy to understand stories from the business and financial world using data journalism tools.

Data journalism is a way of pulling news ideas and information from the deluge of information that exists and using multiple channels for news dissemination, a culture made possible by the ease of access to data.

Precious Ankomah, Programme Manager for New Media Innovations at Penplusbytes said “Data journalism is fast becoming the industry standard. Media persons in other countries have discovered the vast audiences that can be reached by combining the traditional news, technology based information searches and the ability to tell compelling stories and this is something Ghanaian journalists too need to enhance accuracy and professionalism in their field of work”.

In the past few months, Penplusbytes has set out to investigate new trends in journalism and to present those through training to media persons in Ghana. Over the years, the organisation has worked with the media to identify gaps in practice and to provide a myriad of solutions including face to face sessions, discussions via an online community of practice as well as news room coaching and mentoring sessions.

The overall aim of this inaugural training is to empower financial journalists and reporters to use data journalism as a tool to enhance their story telling based on evidence. It is expected to be particularly useful as it will breakdown stories into easily relatable chunks for audiences and aid issues based discussions which are important particularly in an election year.

Participants of this workshop include journalists from various media houses in the Ghanaian space such as Joy FM, Graphic Communications, Ghana News Agency, Citi FM, GBC, Xinhua News Agency, Daily Guide and The Finder Newspaper.

About

Penplusbytes is a not-for-profit organization driving change through innovations in three key areas: using new digital technologies to enable good governance and accountability, new media and innovations, and driving oversight for effective utilisation of mining, oil and gas revenue and resources.