The National Orientation Agency (NOA) in collaboration with the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) have re-echoed the importance of writing data-driven reports and have charged journalists to focus more on backing their reports with accurate data.
In a two-day workshop organised for journalists in South-West Nigeria and Edo at Ibadan, highlights the need to buttress data-driven report in order to paint a definite picture on a particular issue.
UNICEF Communication Officer, Blessing Ejiofor, stated that “Data is key to policy making, planning and evaluation functions; so we hope to familiarise journalists with the key findings of the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS5 2016-17) from south-west Nigeria and Edo State to enable them generate child rights media advocacy stories using accurate data.
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“Journalists need to interpret data for stories and reports in a friendly way to aid leaders and citizens understanding and action.
“More data-driven media advocacy stories, reports and programmes on the improvement of the situation of children and women should also be promoted,” she said.
In the same vein, Mr Waheed Isola, Director, NOA, Lagos included that a news report is as good as the accuracy in its data, implying that if data is not well interpreted by journalists, “there is likely not going to be correct analysis and analysis.”