Teams of aspiring data journalists learned how to use basic online tools to create their publications using data during a five-day advanced training.
Journalists who have been participating in the data journalism program of the Internews Media-K project in the Kyrgyz Republic with the support of USAID for six months shared the results of their work on their projects during the training held from September 2 to 6.
They began a more in-depth study of Google Spreadsheet analysis, learned how to scrape web pages, and explored the capabilities of services such as Flourish Studio and ChatGPT. The participants were also engaged in creating data cards in Canva, and maps in Datawrapper.
Bekzat Baiysh, coordinator of the Internews data journalism program in the Kyrgyz Republic , noted that the advanced training for the participants of the 2024 Program was more about mastering new skills and practical work on data material projects, which is important for the further full-fledged and independent work of data journalists.
The program’s mentor and data trainer Saviya Khasanova believes that this time the journalists “worked incredibly productively”, she saw a great interest in creating new data projects and a willingness to continue online learning intensively.
Until the end of December 2024, program participants will continue to work on their materials using open data with the support of mentors.
Alexey Zhuravlev, a graduate of the Internews data journalism program in the Kyrgyz Republic, acted as a co-trainer at this training and shared his experience with colleagues on how to visualize data materials.
At the training, he talked about using the Canva service and showed how to repackage long text data materials into cards for Instagram and other social networks.
“As a result of the training, we saw that the participants were inspired, they had cool ideas. They are ready not just to take ready-made data from the National Statistical Committee, but to collect them manually to support their hypotheses and implement their ideas,” Zhuravlev said.
Ulugbek Koichumanov from Tazabek. kg – the participant in the Advanced Training on Data Journalism by Internews in the Kyrgyz Republic. During the training, he learned how to analyze data and visualize it: a
– At the training, we learned not only how to write texts of data materials, but also deeply studied the compilation of data sets using various tools. This is very inspiring since data journalism allows you to pack a large amount of data into one infographic, thereby reducing a huge amount of text, which allows you to focus the audience’s attention on the context the author needs.
My colleague and data journalist Maden Usmanov, a graduate of the previous Internews Data Journalism Program in the Kyrgyz Republic, greatly influenced my development in data journalism. He explained that data journalism is comparable to cartoons in newspapers when the image clearly shows what the author wanted to convey,” he said.
According to Ulugbek, he and his colleagues are currently working on three publications, he believes that data material can be written on any topic and dreams of creating a project about Kyrgyz football.
About Program
For six years, Internews in the Kyrgyz Republic has been implementing the Data Journalism Program and developing this genre in Kyrgyzstan within the framework of the Media-K project with the support of USAID. During this time, more than 100 journalists have been trained in data skills. Dozens of independent newsrooms have successfully launched their data departments, program participants have published more than 170 data-driven materials, and individual papers have received international recognition.
A strong and active data community has formed in the country, and Internews alumni Saviya Khasanova and Anna Kapushenko have won the prestigious professional Sigma Awards, one of the main data journalism awards in the world for their data material on femicide in Kyrgyzstan.
To develop data journalism in Kyrgyzstan, the Program has successfully implemented partnerships with organizations such as the World Bank, the IDEM Institute, FCDO and the Data School. The mentors of the program were such professionals in the field of journalism and working with data as Anastasia Valeeva, Cholpon Uzakbaeva, Aizada Toma, Andrey Dorozhny, Alexander Bogachev and Saviya Khasanova.
The Data journalism program is implemented within the framework of the Internews in Kyrgyzstan Media-K project with the support of USAID.
