GIJ Holds Consultative Meeting On Effective Digital Storytelling

The Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) on Thursday hosted a consultative meeting on effective digital storytelling as part of a project to institute a programme at the school to equip media practitioners with data interpretation skills.

The meeting discussed modalities for the program and drew participants from collaborators, the UNDP and the Ghana Statistical Service, and various media associations.

In an address by the Dean of Journalism and Media Studies of the GIJ, Dr. James Kwaku Asante, the project was hailed as very timely especially in the era of social media and citizen journalism.

Dr. Asante cites an example of himself being stranded with very technical data from a press conference some 20 years when he was a journalist, saying if he had the facility that is being set up now, he would have been spared a lot of stress.

“Mr. Chairman, my interactions with the current crop of journalists indicate that problem of the inability to make meaning out of those documents persists, and I am convinced that most media practitioners here will have similar experiences to share with us if time should permit us…It is in this vein that the GIJ, particularly, the journalism and media studies faculty view this collaboration with UNDP and GSS laudable,” Dr. Asante said.

In attendance at the meeting were representatives of the Ghana Journalist Association (GJA), the Newspaper Publishers Association of Ghana, and the Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association among others.

Also in attendance were representatives of the UNDP and the GSS.