dokuz8NEWS has started a project for Developing Capacity for Data Journalism in Turkey, and as part of this project the first of a total of three training sessions has been held in Istanbul. At the three-day training session 24 participants from Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Diyarbakır, Trabzon and Kocaeli have been present. This training session has been 26th in dokuz8NEWS' series on Alternative Media & Citizen Journalism Training Sessions.
Gökhan Biçici, one of the founders and executive director of dokuz8NEWS has started the training sessions with a brief history of dokuz8NEWS and explained the conditions that necessitated a project to be developed on data journalism.
DISEMPLOYED JOURNALISTS, CITIZEN JOURNALISTS, NGO REPRESENTATIVES
On the 26th training session on Alternative Media & Citizen Journalism training series, dokuz8NEWS executive director Gökhan Biçici reiterated that many journalists have been disemployed through immense pressure on media organisations and shutting down of institutions in the last five years, and stated that the secondary impact of this pressure is a matter for discussion globally.
FALLING BEHIND THE GLOBAL DEVELOPMENTS
Biçici also mentioned that beyond the actual pressure that is causing immediate problems of media in Turkey, a secondary impact causing the journalists to stay behind their peers globally is also worrying for the future of the field. In the last five years, technological developments in the field of journalism have generally been not fully followed by journalists operating in Turkey and this also has had an impact on the perception and implementation of data journalism as well.
At the training session a video from shut down IMC TV’s Agenda Research program has been shown, which can be considered as one of the first data journalism programs in Turkey. Project leader and one of the founders of dokuz8NEWS, Yunus Erduran continued the training session after screening of the video and explained the one year project through its framework and the planned activities, as well as content format to be published as part of the project.
HISTORY OF DATA JOURNALISM
After Erduran, academic teaching in the Netherlands and expert on data journalism Dr. Efe Kerem Sözeri has presented the history of data journalism. Dr. Sözeri started his talk with the definition of data journalism and explained the international conceptualisation through samples.
PITCHING FOR TOPICS
Following Dr. Sözeri’s talk, during the workshop session the participants have pitched ideas for covering certain topics at the “newsroom discussion”. Through the discussions, each participant has pitched for a topic and determined an area to focus. Following this process, dokuz8NEWS trainer Onur Metin has presented their sessions on data sources, finding & mining data, search engine samplings, data analysis, data mathematics and data visualisation.
MATRA PROGRAMME SUPPORTS THE TRAININGS
Matra funding program of the Embassy of the Netherlands in Ankara is supporting the project for development of data journalism in Turkey. As part of the project, three training sessions will be organised as a total welcoming 20 participants each. The second training session as part of the project will be organised in April and the third one in May. An open call will be made for participants from across Turkey.
SPECIAL CONTENT GENERATED BY PARTICIPANTS WILL BE PUBLISHED
The 60 people who will be trained through these sessions will be encouraged to generate at least one copyrighted content making use of the skill sets developed as part of the project. There will be four main themes available on “Social Gender & Children”, “Labour & Social Policies”, “Freedom of Press & Expression” and “Human Rights Violations” covering a total of 120 copyrighted content. Half of all the published content will be translated into English and published for wider audiences internationally.