Members from the media and users engaged in PR attended the seminar entitled 'Statistics and the Media,' recently held by the National Statistics Office. The event was primarily intended to help users familiarise with the statistical output of the Office.

NSO Director General Reuben Fenech explained that the seminar was another step in fulfilling the vision of the NSO that is focused in helping Malta make better decisions. He said that the NSO is looking at ways to be more relevant to users, not least by giving the tools to the media for it to interpret the NSO's output in the right way and also spot instances when others misinterpret or misuse the data.

"Our daily monitoring has shown that it is not uncommon for users to inadvertently quote outdated information or interpret data in a way that is not factual," said Mr Fenech.

Meanwhile the NSO is looking at ways it can communicate its statistical output better, with the aim of limiting the range of interpretations. "The way NSO communicates will evolve to reflect the way our users want to receive information. The use of Twitter to highlight various key aspects coming out of our daily releases is a step in that direction and we hope that by the end of the year a number of key releases would have their format revamped to make them more meaningful to a wider audience."

Keith Borg, who leads the Dissemination Unit at the NSO, reviewed the major releases issued by the Office and provided insight about their interpretation. Reference was made to the GDP, inflation, unemployment, poverty, population and tourism among others.

In another presentation, the head of the Research and Methodology Unit Silvan Zammit, shed light on the tools available on the NSO website, such as: Metadata and StatDB.

The seminar also served as a platform for NSO to reach out to its users and discuss ways in which its statistical output can be enhanced.

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