Data journalism is an important and fast-developing field which is becoming indispensable for all working journalists, and investigative journalists in particular. Data journalism uses digital tools to analyse large data sets, to enable reporters to uncover, report and present what would often have been otherwise inaccessible stories. The data journalism workshop begins Wednesday, May 1 and runs until Saturday, May 4 at the Medallion Hotel in Kingston.
"We're very excited to have been able to partner with the US Embassy on this important project," says PAJ President George Davis. "This is enabling us to offer training in cutting-edge skills which are becoming increasingly important for 21st century journalists, operating in an increasingly digital world. Very appropriately, the workshop will be taking place on World Press Freedom Day on May 3."
Director of Interactive Journalism at the City University of New York (CUNY) Sandeep Junnarkar will be leading the workshop. Junnarkar helped develop the early digital editions of The New York Times as a breaking news editor, reporter, and web producer. He is currently a consulting newsroom trainer at Bloomberg and advises on data news projects. He has received numerous journalism awards, including an OnlineJournalism Award for his investigative series on hackers' frequent intrusions into banking systems and how that presaged the vulnerability of all our personal information online. He was president of the South Asian Journalists Association from 2008 to 2010. He received a B.A. in Social Science from the University of California at Berkeley and an M.S. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
"Sanjeep is extremely well qualified to help us empower Jamaican reporters to hold their own in data journalism with our colleagues all over the world, as we do in so many fields," says Davis.
The prestigious International Data Journalism Awards are an indication of the growing importance of this field. Winners at the 2018 international Data Journalism Awards included Filipino website Rappler, that used public data on road accidents, coupled with detailed research into traffic safety in the Philippines to map traffic accidents across the Philippines and create a heat map showing dangerous roads. A Reuters' project called "Life in the Camps" won the award for Data Journalism Visualization of the Year. Reporters on that project used data from aid agencies to map the camps. The team also did on-the ground reporting on the conditions in which refugees were living.
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Contact George Davis
Caption: Sanjeep Junnarkar
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