By Kehinde Ayanboade
In a bid to develop new media giants in the digital world of multimedia journalism, a Lecturer from the University of Lagos, Dr Suraj Olunifesi has reeled out the importance of data and information management, literacy and manipulation in the sustainable practice of 21st-century journalism.
Olunifesi maintains that data, facts and figures are what make the news which requires the need for a multimedia journalist to get conversant with data and better metrics most important for decision making in other to have details of the audience’s preferences, needs and desires.
The Academia who made this known while delivering a lecture on Day – 2 of Media Entrepreneurship Training organized by the Africa Foundation For Young Media Professionals (AFYMP) for fourteen (14) young journalists in Yaba, Lagos stressed that the rapid change in the technological environment, aggressive demanding audiences, global competition and the recent increase in media proliferation in the multimedia industry is a reason why journalists must step ahead and acquire knowledge on information science and literacy.
He describes the accuracy of data, validity, reliability, timeliness, the relevance of purpose, completeness and feedback process as core characteristics of better quality data needed in journalistic practice adding that analysing of a large database requires the usage of statistical methods and artificial intelligence to make information comprehensive and understanding to the audience.
He added that data-driven journalism is the future and journalists need to be data – savvy of which they need to equip themselves with the analysing tools required adding that journalists now have to double as data analysts.
Source: Naija Metro
