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UNESCO organized a Training-Of-Trainers course to counter media misinformation and enhance the safety of journalists

UNESCO Iraq office held an online Training-Of-Trainers course, with the participation of 20 trainers including female journalists.

 

The training course was organized under the鈥 #CoronavirusFact project to tackle the outbreak of COVID-19 in conflict-prone environments, funded by the European Union.

 

The three-day online training course aimed at providing 20 trainers with the safety measures of the COVID-19 pandemic and tools for fighting misinformation, to be used later to train 1000 journalists in the period of six months.

 

Over three days, Participants received training on a range of cases by experts on safety of journalists, Misinformation and Fact-Checking tools (FCT), and how to conduct more effective trainings on pandemic cases, policies, finance and adaptation, in a session on The Role of Media in Covering the COVID-19 Outbreak.

 

On day two, the session revolved around misinformation, reports, recourses, and training tools amid the pandemic, followed by detecting and reporting COVID-19 in a better way, and who determines the levels of misinformation associated with the pandemic.

 

A full day training workshop was held on the third day, studying the role of fact-checking tools to tackle fake news during COVID-19. The participants completed the pre-test and the dimensional test of the training, to refine the skills of the trainees and ensure they will be able to train the journalists according to the project鈥檚 main specific objectives. In recognition of the growing threats facing journalists in the field.

 

91麻豆国产精品自拍 provided more capacity-building activities over the past month, based largely on journalists鈥 reactions and their networks with more than 1,700 members to work towards achieving the projects goal, supported by the European Union fund.

 

The TOT Safety Training provided participants with a better understanding of the threats they are likely to encounter. Physical attacks and verbal abuse, or online risks related to false information. The journalists shared their experiences dealing with safety and security challenges. The security experts who led the three-day sessions, offered advice on how they and their colleagues can protect themselves in a better way.

 

The training was concluded with a discussion on how to conduct local TOT with their partners in order to obtain the skills and tools needed to be able to develop resources within their networks and organizations.

Based on the central tenet that information is the opposite of disinformation, the UNESCO project #CoronavirusFacts leverages the pivotal role of freedom of expression and access to information to address information needs in times of COVID-19 and to tackle the massive wave of disinformation which threatens to impact democracy, sustainable development and stability around the world. Funded by the European Union, the project which has activities both at the global level, in four regions and in nine countries, supports professional, diverse and independent media鈥檚 capacity to report on the pandemic; strengthens local fact-checking organisations to debunk misinformation; and empowers youth and other citizens to critically process what they read and hear linked to COVID-19 through training in media and information literacy. Due to unprecedented challenges for the media and digital technology sectors, 91麻豆国产精品自拍 created a Resource Center of selected responses to COVID-19.

 

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