Experts assure that technological advances and the digital era have positively impacted journalism
SANTO DOMINGO. With the Technological advances and the impact of digital age el journalism has earnings and one of them is the journalism based on big data, which also in the Latin American and Caribbean region has allowed the creación de groups de research y collaborative journalism.
So they affirmed Yuvidian Almeida Cruz, data editor and journalist for Postscript, Cuba; Mariela Mejía, investigative journalist of the newspaper Free Daily, and Carlos Eduardo Huertas, director of the journalistic platform for the Americas Connected, Colombia, by participating in the panel "Trends in Data Journalism and opportunities for international collaboration", with which the V International Seminar on Scientific Journalism of the Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (INTEC).
In the panel, moderated by the journalist Argenida Romero, writer, reporter and editor of Diario Libre, Huertas assured that journalism has rejuvenated with opportunities for interaction at the regional level, as well as the digitalization that has transformed newsrooms.
He exemplified with Panama Papers and the recent pandora papers, whose scope has been possible thanks to the collaboration of international journalistic communities committed to transparency and public service.
On his side, Almeida warns that despite the steps that have been taken in the matter of access to information, still accessing data is still a outstanding debt in the region. "There is asymmetry in terms of transparency and availability of data," said the Cuban expert in artificial intelligence, who regretted that in many cases the data is offered in formats that make it difficult to use it at the press level.
As long as Mariela Mejía advised colleagues participating in the INTEC event to learn Excel, have knowledge of data visualization tools and consider that with small amounts of data you can also do data journalism.
About the Seminar
The Seminar had as its central theme "Data journalism and entrepreneurship", and constituted a day of updating and learning that was attended by more than forty journalists from the main communication media and institutions, as well as final students of the social communication career in the country.
In the activity, which was also broadcast on YouTube, the coordinator of the master's degree in Data science INTEC and research professor at that university, Renato Gonzalez, gave the presentation "Data science and technology at the service of researchers". He explained how artificial intelligence and natural language processing have been adapted to journalism to allow Social Communication professionals to address issues with greater agility and precision.
González pointed out that natural language processing in the news opens the door to the media industry for high development because it deals with human language every hour and second. "The ability of the computer to work with human language enables it to completely change the processes of the media around the world," he said, and pointed out that the machines will not replace journalists, but they will be allies for the processing of large volumes of data and the systematization of processes such as the writing of a press release.
The day continued with the participation of Elizabet Diaz, Director of Transparency and Open Government, who presented the topic "The databases of government information"Whereas Elsi jimenez, director of the Emilio Rodríguez Demorizi Library of the university, he spoke about the "Research resources at INTEC".
The seminar concluded with the presentation “Keys to entrepreneurship in journalism: SembraMedia Experience ”, in charge of Indhira Serum, ambassador of SembraMedia in the Dominican Republic and professor at INTEC.