The founder of Orodata Science, Mr Blaise, Aboh has advised media practitioners journalists to develop skill for data journalism.
Aboh, a Citizen Data Scientist, made the call on Saturday in Lagos, at the Hack/Hackers Lagos event, with the theme, ”Hack a Dataset – Transforming Your Spreadsheet into a Story”.
He described data journalism as the use of evidence to substantiate a story, hence, giving the story credibility.
According to him, journalists are not willing to write stories flocked with data or figures, because they think such data will be complex.
”The reason is because they don’t have the skill. The first thing is for the journalist to decide and have the will to do data journalism.
”We are in the phase of big data, where there are too many information and people have stopped paying attention to long stories.
”Data journalism helps to capture their attention and tells a story better.
”Data is evidence and it is all around us. Data has been used to solve problems and to get answers,” he said.
The Information Technology (IT) expert said that data journalism would help journalists to attend to different audiences.
The Country Lead, Code for Nigeria, Ms Nkechi Okwuone, said that Hack/Hackers programme was a place where media met technology.
Okwuone said that it was a place where journalists learn skills, work on civic technology and civic media projects.
”It is a place where we build capacity of journalists and foster collaboration between the media and technology.
”It is a monthly programme holding in Lagos and Abuja and other parts of the world.
“It holds on third Saturdays in Lagos and second Fridays in Abuja,” she said. (NAN)
