Deadline: 23-May-23
The How India Lives, with support from Google News Initiative, is launching Data Journalism Accelerator, a 6-month program to train and mentor 20 chosen journalists/newsrooms in data-driven storytelling.
Benefits
- Data Journalism Accelerator is a six-month intensive training and mentoring fellowship program being launched by How India Lives and is supported by the Google News Initiative. The program will provide in-depth coaching and mentoring support to a chosen cohort of 20 journalists / newsrooms from India and help them embrace a data-driven story-telling approach for their newsrooms.
- 3-day immersion / workshop: 3-day, in-person, residential training program in New Delhi on data sources, data analysis, utilitarian and easy-to-use tools, visual presentation, narration, and more.
- Weekly deep dives: 20 online sessions of 3 hours each, held once a week, that delve deeper into specific domains related to data, analytics, software and storytelling.
- Personal mentoring: For 6 months, the diverse HIL team—comprising experienced journalists, data analysts and IT programmers—will be available on demand for one-on-one sessions around skill building, problem solving and mentoring.
- Election focus: India is entering a big election year. Thus, the program will focus on sources of electoral and political data, and how to leverage them for meaningful stories.
- Stipend: A stipend of Rs 50,000 each will be given to candidates who publish 5 data stories during the program. The HIL team will guide them via online sessions and one-to-one mentoring.
- Certificate of Completion: A certificate on completion of the program with 90% attendance and publishing at least 5 data stories.
Key takeaways of the training program
- The program consists of structured modules that will equip participants with the tools to excel in data journalism and effectively utilize data-driven insights to communicate compelling stories.
- Diverse Sectors: From corporates to elections, cities to governments, where to find the data and how to unlock stories hidden in numbers.
- Data Tools: Learn spreadsheets till an intermediate level. Get a basic training of analytical tools like R, Google Sheets, Google Trends.
- Spotting Biases: How to use the right analytic tools to identify biases in your data and how to work around them.
- Data Scraping: How to use code to download big public datasets.
- Data Processing: Cleaning, organizing data using tools like Google Refine.
- Data Visualization: How to present data stories using charting tools like Google Charts, Tableau and Flourish.
Eligibility Criteria
- The program is open to journalists working in Indian newsrooms as well as freelancers from varied backgrounds and experience levels. No prior data journalism experience is required to participate.
- Participants will be selected via an open call. Preference will be given to applicants from under-represented backgrounds and those working with small and mid-sized newsrooms.
- The training will be led by members of the HIL team, comprising experienced journalists, data analysts and programmers. The program will also include guest lectures from top journalists who have done award-winning work in the space of data journalism and other subject experts.
The Program
- Broadly, the program will be broken into three parts, spread over a period of six months.
- Part 1: In-person workshop
- The first part will be a 3-day immersion on data journalism that will address topics like data sources, data analysis, utilitarian and easy-to-use tools, visual presentation and narration. It will guide participants on how they can do data stories, as well as marshal data and its possibilities more effectively even in conventional narration formats.
- This immersion will be held in Delhi from June 29 to July 1 (Thursday to Saturday). Stay and travel of the selected participants will be covered by the program.
- Some of the topics the workshop will cover are:
- Reading data in a context
- Sources of socio, demographic, electoral and economic data on India.
- How to write about data.
- How to use data for leverage in newsrooms.
- How to present data.
- New age sources/tools of data.
- Part 2: Online sessions
- The second track of the program consists of 20 online sessions. These will be scheduled once a week, for 3 hours each, typically on Saturday mornings. Each of these sessions will delve deeper into specific domains related to data, tools, analytics, software and storytelling.
- Topics will include:
- Learning Spreadsheets till an intermediate level
- Spotting biases in data
- Digital tools to become a better journalist
- Learning R
- Data visualisation
- Data scraping
- Part 3: One-on-one mentoring
- The third part will be oriented around mentoring, where the diverse HIL team will be available on demand for one-on-one sessions around skill building, problem solving and mentoring participants to help them with their stories.
- Part 1: In-person workshop
Details
- Announcement of selected participants: May 30, 2023
- Program kicks off (3-day workshop): June 29 to July 1, 2023
For more information, visit Data Journalism Program.