Meeting the needs of journalists in Nigeria
How Hacks/Hackers Lagos and Hacks/Hackers Abuja are learning where the real pain points are.
If data is the new oil, then data journalists are the new geologists looking to unearth rich new fields of information hidden from view and bringing it to the light of day. Here in Nigeria, there’s an incredible interest in using data for researching and telling stories, and members in Hacks/Hackers Lagos (#HHLOS) and Hacks/Hackers Abuja (#HHABJ) have consistently told us that they want to know more.
Which is why we attracted more than 75 registrations for our latest event which focussed on data visualisation. Such is the enthusiasm for the subject, we’re finding that people are travelling from different parts of the country for events like these. “A picture speaks a thousand words”, and journalists in Nigeria understand that they can tell intricate stories with data visualisations, so long as they’re designed and used in a way the audience will understand.
Our Slack workspace
To get started, we introduced attendees not to data visualisations, but to the collaboration app Slack. Producing good visualisations is often a collaborative effort. We urge everyone to join our workspace (code4africa) and take advantage of our open channels (#general , #code-for-nigeria , #hackshackers-africa) for opportunities and advice from the Code for Nigeria and Hacks/Hackers communities.
We started by creating a demo workspace where newbies could play around, make mistakes before migrating them to the code for Africa workspace. There emerged a new slang in the room -“just Slack it” when colleagues asked themselves questions or request anything.
Visualise what you collect
For simple visualisations, we focussed on a step-by-step approach to using Google Fusion Tables to tell beautiful stories on a map. We asked newsrooms to present their work, and explain differences and similarities between a visualisation and infographics.
Air quality is a major issue in Lagos, and Code for Africa is supporting efforts to collect data from a network of low cost sensors. As an introduction to visualisations, we took air quality data from these locally built devices, and showed journalists how to cross-reference taught on how to cross reference their location with a web-based GPS coordinate finder tool www.gps-coordinates.org. We also created a simple map of media agencies in Nigeria.
Embed code for the map viz
<iframe width=”500" height=”300" scrolling=”no” frameborder=”no” src=”https://fusiontables.google.com/embedviz?q=select+col2+from+1RfdM7Os5oia0wsaqCUuJSbwoDl04OQXy3ugBNPlT&viz=MAP&h=false&lat=6.586055077758897&lng=3.3759236500000043&t=1&z=11&l=col2&y=2&tmplt=2&hml=TWO_COL_LAT_LNG"></iframe>
The excitement of learning a new skill filled the room as journalist demonstrated their visualisations and recited steps they took in doing so, hear from our community as they express themselves http://bit.ly/2DZt2bX
About the Author
Eromosele John is a civic technologist, chemist and an open data enthusiast. you can connect with him on twitter and email.
The worlds of hackers and journalists are coming together, as reporting goes digital and Internet companies become media empires.
Journalists call themselves “hacks,” someone who can churn out words in any situation. Hackers use the digital equivalent of duct tape to whip out code.
Hacker-journalists try and bridge the two worlds. Hacks/Hackers Africa aims to bring all these people together — those who are working to help people make sense of our world. It’s for hackers exploring technologies to filter and visualize information, and for journalists who use technology to find and tell stories. In the age of information overload and collapse of traditional business models for legacy media, their work has become even more crucial.
Code for Africa, is the continent’s largest #OpenData and civic technology initiative, recognises this and is spearheading the establishment of a network of HacksHackers chapters across Africa to help bring together pioneers for collaborative projects and new ventures.
