Written By Kwami Ahiabenu - Data journalism is changing the face of news production around the world. In Ghana, this trend is catching up but not fast enough. Data journalism is not new per se; however, the rapid advancement in computing power, availability of public data and new tools to process them is stimulating its popularity.
Data journalism is a journalism speciality reflecting the increased important role that numerical data is playing in story production and distribution in the digital age where audiences are demanding news every second of the day. It reflects the increased interaction between content producers (journalist) and several other fields such as design, mathematics, computer science and statistics to produce data rich compelling content.
The advent of data journalism calls for new skills, processes and tools, including statistical literacy, an ability to work with large multiple data sets and making connections between various data sets. In this way, journalists are provided a unique opportunity to investigate and form truths from databanks for the public.
A key building block of data journalism is the upsurge in “big data” which is premised on the principle that we can generate a lot of value in finding patterns in publicly available data and news-related information when combined with storytelling techniques in generating compelling stories.
Can data journalism save journalism?
Journalism is at a crossroad. Most news editors, managers, publishers and owners are confronted with challenges, including declining advert revenues, an ‘always-on’ news cycle, public distrust in the media, new types of news channels, including technology companies offering news, and a rapidly changing news ecosystem which is eroding the influence of traditional media. In light of this, newsrooms must adapt by evolving new storytelling techniques and presentation in order to survive. Data journalism can provide solutions to all these challenges by offering value addition, which audiences are demanding. Though most newsrooms are not currently generating significant amounts of revenue from data driven stories, its future prospects are very bright if current production of analytical reports are to be believed. Traditional news generation relied on clearly defined sources, but today’s reality means newsrooms are bombarded with multiple sources. This means news processing is done from an unprecedented pool of data. News information and data driven storytelling techniques are the most likely to offer a solution for dealing with this challenge. By investing in new ways of telling stories, newsrooms can stay ahead of the curve.
Challenges
There is a popular notion in Ghana that, most Journalists chose journalism because they do not want to deal with the complex math and statistics required for other fields, this generalisation does not hold water, especially when it comes to journalists who report on science, finance or extractives, which demand significant data processing. It is important to note that some media types lend themselves easily to data-driven stories such as online, print and TV. However on radio, data journalism is not as useful because audiences cannot see the visualisations and reporters need to use verbal descriptions and prompts to ensure that audiences can make meaning out of complex data.
In Ghana, data is a scarce commodity, the situation is exacerbated by a lack of freedom of information law which can empower journalists and other interested parties to demand for vital data needed to generate data journalism pieces. Further, every aspect of our national life, lacks organised data. When this data is available, it is either locked up in printed format or in PDF which makes it difficult to process.
For example, in 2014 when there was an Ebola outbreak in some West African countries, some Ghanaian journalists could not access the Ghana Health Services relevant information and data they needed to educate their audiences in case of an outbreak. If this data and information was made readily available and Ghanaian journalists had the skills to tell data driven stories it could have gone a long way to curb unfounded panic and misconception about the disease.
Furthermore, data journalism projects are time consuming and demand investigation as well but most newsrooms simply are very thin on staff and other resources that are needed to undertake data-driven stories.
In conclusion, data journalism is the new relevant path for journalists and their newsrooms. Data journalism demands not only a good nose for news but also skills in computer programming, mathematics, statistics and visualisation. Unfortunately, newsrooms in Ghana simply do not have individuals or a group of individuals with these skills. Journalists and media practitioners must invest time and energy to develop their data journalism skills since it adds value to the stories they are producing and serves their audiences with high quality information.
The writer is the Executive Director of Penplusbytes.org - you can reach him at
