The Ethical Charter for Syrian Media “ECSM”, in collaboration with Alrased Network, concluded a training workshop on standards of the Charter’s Code of Professional Conduct, the Complaints Mechanism, and gender justice in media content in Southern Syria, Suwayda.
The two-day training was attended by 17 female and male civilian journalists from southern Syria.
On the first day, the trainer presented the standards of the Charter’s Code of Professional Conduct. Where, the first session included an introduction to the charter, discussing the importance of journalistic charters and adherence to them. The trainer explained the professional and ethical standards of journalism in detail and interactively.
In the second session, the trainer elaborated on the code of conduct standards, using a discussion and inference method, linking them to similar institutions’ standards. He emphasized the importance of codes of conduct in guiding, correcting, and enhancing professional journalism. During this session, participants engaged in a debate on the ethics, principles, and standards that journalists and media outlets should adhere to, aligned with the ECSM’s vision.
At the end of the first day, participants conducted a practical activity to address a hypothetical news scenario that included misleading and inciting information. The trainer divided participants into two groups, editors and reviewers. The editors wrote the news from their perspectives, while the reviewers highlighted all violations of the professional and ethical standards of journalism and the code of conduct standards in the Charter.
On the second day, the trainer discussed the complaints mechanism in ECSM, highlighting the benefits for compliant institutions and its direct impact on the audience. The trainer detailed the complaint mechanism’s importance to the media sector and then moved to various topics, starting with interactive training on the differences between freedom of expression and hate speech. This included an open discussion on words and phrases that constitute hate speech in journalism, suggesting alternatives to mitigate and counteract such speech. The trainer then explained the workings of the complaints mechanism, including an illustrative exercise on the complaints committee’s work, and reception, review, and address of the complaint.
In the final session, the trainer conducted a discussion with participants about media violations against women. Where, female trainees enriched the dialogue with recommendations, including the need to prevent discrimination against women in various fields.
Female activist Samar, one of the participants, commented, “The first session on the charter was outstanding, both in terms of the trainer’s approach and the content”. She noted that the workshop provided valuable information about professional standards and clarified many aspects of professional journalism and the ECSM.
Three other female participants highlighted that the interactive training style conveyed the ideas fully, allowing them to understand the ECSM’s goals and ethical and professional standards, and the importance of solidarity through it.
Female participant Ola said, “The workshop enhanced my knowledge of professional aspects and made me more familiar with ethical media practices and the common principles agreed upon by journalists within this charter”. She added that the trainer conveyed the concepts and content beautifully and simply through dialogue, which helped solidify the training material.
Maysa stated that “the training opened the door for me to learn more about the ECSM, the code of conduct, the nature of the ECSM’s work, and the complaint mechanism, which I hadn’t heard about before and found very important with hopes for its expansion. I benefited from exchanging views and discussions with colleagues”.
Both Hani and Sahar recommended offering more training on these topics “to enable journalists to create more professional, ethical, and high-quality content”, expressing gratitude to the ECSM team for what they described as a valuable and beneficial opportunity.
