Code for Africa, an international NGO, with a mission for building data journalism desks across Africa, on Monday announced plans
to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
The organisation’s Pan-African Data Editor, Mr Jacopo Ottaviani, disclosed this during a visit to the management of the Agency’s Lagos Office.
Ottaviani, who said that the NGO had been training journalists in
Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya and Tanzania, explained that its partnership with NAN would further expose the Agency’s journalists to the relevance of data, graphs and visuals in their reports.
“The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) is one of our preferred partners in Nigeria and across the continent. We are planning to expand NAN’s capacity to produce quality data journalism reports and stories for its clients.
“Our objective is to train NAN journalists so that they can do more in data journalism through charts, produce maps and design good infographics that will help their readers and listeners to get a deeper understanding of their news reports.
“We are, therefore, planning to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with NAN, because of its wide coverage of news in the country and in the ECOWAS sub-region,’’ he said.
The Country Lead of Code for Nigeria, Ms Nkechi Okwuone, said that the visit was to assess the relevance of data journalism and infographics to some NAN journalists, who had benefited from its programmes since February 2017.
Okwuone also said that the visit would enable both organisations
to evolve new areas in their partnership, with a view to signing an MoU.
The Managing Editor and Head of the Lagos Office of NAN, Mr Mike Mbonye, commended the NGO for choosing NAN as one of its “preferred media organisation for its data journalism development programme’’.
Mbonye said that the training so far received by NAN Journalists from Code for Africa had been very helpful to beneficiaries from the Agency’s various desks.
“The trainings that we have so far received from you have been very helpful and wonderful to our various desks.
“It has given us that edge over our subscribers and competitors. We really need you to continue to sustain these sessions with us,’’ he added. (NAN)
