European Union in Timor-Leste supports journalist’s training in Data Journalism

28.08.2019

36 Timorese journalists attended a training course on Information in the digital era, as part of the European Union project “Partnership to improve service delivery through strengthened Public Finance Management and Oversight (PFMO)

 

36Timorese journalists, 24 of whom are women, attended a training course in Data Journalism, as component of the programme “Partnership to improve service delivery through strengthened Public Finance Management and Oversight (PFMO), financed by the European Union with 30 million Euros.

With a total of 60 hours of training, the workshop went through a first phase of diagnosis of the trainees' competences, followed by a predominantly active methodology, oriented towards the simulation of the situations with which the trainees were confronted in their real work context. 

The initiative also contributed to the learning and understanding of public finance policies the use of public records for news reporting on government accountability and transparency.

The trainees included professionals from eight different media: radio, television, print media, news agency, web communication.

The EU Budget Support’s Programme PFMO - “Money belongs to the people, manage it wisely” is enhancing the government's capacity to design and implement financial policies to improve the delivering of better public services. The programme is co-financed by Camoes with 600.000 euros over a period of 5 years (2017-2021) and focus on two main components: strengthening public finance management in order to improve the implementation of fiscal and development policies; enhancing the checks and balances’ capacity of state and non-state actors so that they can fully play their role of checking/monitoring policies and thus actively participating in the policy-making process.

Simon Le Grand, Head of Cooperation of the EU Delegation said: It is very important that journalists have a good understanding of Data Journalism so that they can inform the public in a balanced and transparent way. In democracy, journalists have a fundamental role to clarify facts and public policies, by asking the right questions and contributing to the access to independent and transparent information to citizens.

The journalists’ training was organized in collaboration with the Institute “Consultório da Língua Portuguesa (CLP), the Center for Journalists’ Training of Portugal (CENJOR), the local Press Council and the Secretary of State for Social Communication.