Daily Trust Foundation chair asks journalists to hold govt accountable

For journalists to deepen good governance in the country they must hold governments at all levels accountable through data and evidence- driven reporting, chairman of the Daily Trust Foundation, Malam Wada Maida said.

He said Nigerian journalists must abandon armchair reporting, and join the league of journalists, who dig deep into complex data and produce golden and challenging reports that would refine and make the country a better place.

Maida disclosed this yesterday at the opening of the maiden Data Journalism Training organized by Daily Trust Foundation with support from MacArthur Foundation in Abuja.

He said with the global revival in journalism circle on the need to do data- driven stories, journalists must look at the abundantly available figures that provide insights into the performance of those in government.

The chairman quoted a former executive president and chair of Hewlett-Packard Co, Carly Fiorina as saying the essence of data journalism goal is to turn data into information, and information into insight.

“Today’s journalism is not only about reporting what newsmakers say. It is about providing an insight into what government is doing (and not doing), and this is very vital if we must play our constitutional role of holding governments accountable,” he said.

Journalists, according to him, are not meant to only ‘inform, educate and entertain’ the people who buy newspapers but have a higher responsibility of holding government accountable on their behalf.

In her remark, the representative of MacArthur Foundation, Amina Salihu said the essence of the training was to enable journalists use the tools at their disposals and pay attention to details in order to ask the right questions to have the right information.

While urging journalists to use the knowledge from the training to think as social activist, she said, “government will do their part and we will do our part too.”