Sixteen students and graduates of the School of Advanced Journalism were trained in open data journalism in early November. For three days, participants in the fourth Data Journalism Workshop organized by the SAJ with the support of the OSCE Mission to Moldova learned to use open governmental data and found topics for investigation. Students were guided by Daniel Bojin, journalist with RISE Project Romania, and Dumitru Lazur, reporter with RISE Project Moldova.

The workshop began with a short presentation of current trends in the media. Daniel Bojin spoke about the importance of collaboration between journalists, statisticians and programmers, giving the example of the RISE Romania team, which is made of such specialists. This presentation was followed by a session of data journalism, where SAJ disciples found out how databases help research and analyze corruption and organized crime. Then, within a practical exercise together with Dumitru Lazur, students learned to efficiently use open databases from Moldova. They accessed official databases and learned how to correctly “read” figures.

In the following two days of the workshop the emphasis was also on practical exercise. Divided into four teams, participants identified topics for investigation, developed strategies for research and production of materials – all that by using databases. Students were impressed by the new things they learned and said that they would use these techniques to produce professional journalistic materials. “We learned about new methods for searching data and processing them into information, and investigative journalism became a very captivating genre for me,” said student Liliana Botnariuc. Her colleague Nicolae Galaju believes that databases can be used in various journalistic genres. “I will apply in practice everything I learned,” he said.

Trainers were impressed by the performance and interest shown by workshop participants. They encouraged students to continue researching the topics chosen and produce the investigations they began during training. Daniel Bojin urged the School’s disciples to appeal to open data with more trust: “Today, you cannot claim to be a journalist and not use this information resource.” In his turn, Dumitru Lazur called to students to be as curious as possible, and also very careful with details. “Read numbers correctly and ask questions when you see them,” the expert said.

The Data Journalism Workshop is part of the extracurricular activities of the School of Advanced Journalism, and it was organized with the financial support of the OSCE Mission to Moldova. It has been the fourth edition of this event, and so far over 75 SAJ students and graduates have been trained in this field.