Ethical Charter for Syrian Media “ECSM” concluded the training workshop of “information sources in the digital age, and how to benefit from documents and data”, yesterday, Tuesday, in Gaziantep, Turkey.
15 male and female journalists, from Syrian media outlets, and students at media faculties in Turkish universities participated in the training workshop, which was held on 22-23 January 2024.
The daily program of the workshop was divided into 3 main sessions, starting from 10 am until 16 pm, and included practical activities and applications on dealing with information sources in the digital age, and how to benefit from them.
Participants stressed the importance of training in acquiring new knowledge and skills for journalists. Some experiences were also reviewed about sources of information and their importance, types of media content, and ethical controls for dealing with information.
The two-day training program also included practical applications on dealing with information and its sources, and the most prominent guidelines for searching for sources of information.
The trainer, media advisor Mahmoud Abdulhadi, presented on the second day the rules for conducting information dialogue and training in preparing questions for the dialogue, and summarized the most important points of the rules for preparing them in:
1- Abbreviation in the question.
2- Live action.
3- The question without any introduction.
4- Do not deviate from the topic.
Focusing on the importance of defining the goal of the dialogue.
During the second session, the trainer also reviewed the sources of press information, the journalist (reporter – covering the event), event parties, news agencies, media institutions, guests, the audience, mass press, archives, and social media platforms.
In addition, archival and participatory information sources and controls for their use were reviewed, while the last session included practical applications on the use of search engines and social media platforms, some areas of using artificial intelligence, and how to avoid problems.
Regarding her participation in the training workshop, Baraa Khattab said, “the topics that were presented during the training were diverse and rich, and contribute to improving our skills as journalists, most notably in how we deal with and verify information”.
She added that the practical exercises gave us motivation to continuously search for information and rely on reliable sources, noting that the tools and information acquired in the workshop help journalists to develop their work in the future.
In turn, Muhammad Samer Dahdouh said that “the training workshop was rich in content and practical examples, which contributed to clarifying the importance of information in the digital age and how to analyze it better, as the great benefit was in understanding how information can be used to make more accurate decisions in the field of business or academic research”.
Anas Awad, one of the participants in the workshop, shared this opinion. He added that the practical applications were useful in the context of the professional work of journalists, noting that the second day of training witnessed practical application on how to conduct a dialogue about information, and the method of preparing questions and their main rules.
For her part, Manar Al-Jumaili said that “the workshop facilitated the ways for us to access information from reliable sources, and we learned about the most important and most trusted websites for accessing correct information, away from fabrication, in addition to knowing the importance of digital translation and artificial intelligence and how to deal with them”.
Participant Toqa Kalzi said, “the conversations in the workshop about the challenges facing modern journalism sparked my interest, and these discussions stimulated critical thinking”, noting that the workshop provided practical tools and techniques to improve journalistic writing skills and how to prepare objective and comprehensive reports.
