“Advanced Training Skills”: AFCNFactLab Workshop during ARIJ Forum 2024
December 8, 2024
As part of ARIJ 17th forum, which brought together more than 700 journalists, fact-checkers and supporters of independent media from all over the world from December 6 to 8, 2024 in Jordan, the Arab Fact-Checkers Network (AFCN) organized the “Advanced Training Skills” workshop as one of several training workshops, which aims to raise the level and efficiency of journalists and fact-checkers in various fields.
This workshop comes within the (AFCN) track at the ARIJ forum, which specifically targeted the trainers of the “AFCN Fact Lab” project, supported by Google News Initiative (GNI), after they completed their training in 13 countries and successfully trained more than 3,600 trainees, amongst are students, journalists, activists and media professionals.
The workshop commenced on the first day of the forum, December 6, 2024, in a joyful atmosphere as the lab trainers reunited in person after a ten-month hiatus following their intensive training at the Dead Sea in February 2024, prior to starting their training journey.
The workshop opened with an overview of advanced training techniques, followed by two days of intensive practical exercises. During this period, the trainees delivered training presentations on topics of their choice, which were evaluated by the trainer, who offered constructive feedback and guidance.
Ahmed Obeida, a producer and media presenter at DW, led the training during its three days, focusing on presentation techniques, body language and other advanced communication skills. Obeida expressed his happiness with the level of the “AFCN Fact Lab” trainers, saying that “all the characteristics of a good trainer can be found in this team, which I consider the first building blocks of a professional group of fact-checkers in the region, in a time of uncertainty and the spread of false and misleading information”.
For her part, Iman Barq from Lebanon, Director of “Tahaqaq 360″ fact-checking initiative, assured that the workshop “contributed to reminding us of the characteristics of a successful trainer, the essential skills that they must possess, effective training strategies, and the various flaws that a trainer may make and how to avoid them“.
Ahmed Gamal, an Egyptian fact-checker from “Chayyek” initiative, attributed the development of many skills through the workshop to “the idea of pitching in front of the the “FactLab” trainers in 5 minutes is a distinctive one, this serves to analyze training capabilities of each trainer and then listening to evaluation from the specialist help improving the performance“.
It is worth noting that the “AFCNFactLab”, which was launched in February 2024, is a project of ARIJ’s AFCN, and supported by GNI. The project was able to prepare specialized trainers to spread the culture of fact-checking in their countries, in order to increase the level of awareness of combating information disorder amid successive disasters and crises in the region.
