What are you people talking about, “gatekeeping”? Do you personally know Ms. Jones or something? If her job title included “data scientist” then great, let’s call her that.
She was a GIS major who got a job running drag and drop BI software for Florida state govt. She's been called a data scientist by journalists who don't know what data science is, but think it sounds cool and bolsters their narrative that the governor of Florida is a very very bad, mean man.
The entire story has been a ringing example of how mainstream media outlets that were respectable 5 years ago have all turned into Buzzfeed.