Journalists were yesterday taken through ICT reporting skills during a training workshop sponsored by Microsoft. The event, which was aimed at enhancing the writing skills, touched on aspects of the emerging technologies and how ICT writers should report. CIO East Africa Editorial Director Harry Hare, who was among the moderators, said most ICT writers did not have contexts about the stories they write about following their failure to research on the subjects. He emphasized that writers should always use an inverted triangle to help them outline the most to the least important facts about ICT.
“Always use a nut paragraph to show your ideas and make sure the second paragraph shows more information about your ideas,” said Hare.
He said a good story should have various voices and always should have been planned. Hare said most ICT writers have not been reading widely, leading to inaccurate reporting considering that technology is dynamic and changes every single day.

Speaking at the function, Microsoft West, East, Central Africa and Indian Ocean Islands (WECA &IOI) Partner Technology Specialist Kinyanjui Njoroge said that at the moment Africa is seeing some of the highest growth rates in the world and it’s going to increase threefold in the next five years because the global online population was skyrocketing.

“At the moment, there is a strong Internet growth that is taking place in the Middle East and Africa region with an annual growth rate of 51 per cent”, said Kinyanjui.

He said the Internet has helped people share information with the same interest and also build up Web-based services and support for various communication methods between users.

“Sale of new desktop PCs has declined for several years whereas that of notebooks has increased with the shipment of more of these products,” said Kinyanjui.