Health Research and Development: MCK Partners to Build Journalists’ Capacity
Health reporters have been urged to build a relationship with experts and scientists to report factual health data to their audiences.
Media Council of Kenya ’s Director for Media Training and Development Victor Bwire has also urged journalists to embrace patience when looking for data and information from scientists because science reporting takes time.
He told participants at the Media Council of Kenya and the Coalition for Health Research and Development (CHReaD) training for journalists in Naivasha that health journalists need to interrogate political party manifestos to see if they have factored in resources for health and development research in Kenya.
MCK’s Assistant Director for Training and Curriculum Development Christine Nguku said: “Health journalists and researchers need each other for their respective roles to be effective. Researchers need journalists to disseminate their output. On the other hand, journalists need researchers to get news and information the public can use”.
She encouraged the journalists to humanise the stories they tell for them to be more impactful. “Even data stories should have a human face”, she said.
“When telling health data stories, you need to put human faces to the numbers. For instance, saying one in 10 women in a given community has cervical cancer is more effective than saying 10 per cent. This moves people to act better than an abstract figure such as 10 percent”, said veteran journalist and trainer Ann Mikia.
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