Reserve of national media literacy experts grows with the support of the OSCE

On September 16-17, a two-day training was held at the OSCE Center in Ashgabat aimed at improving the media and legal literacy of young journalists and employees of government institutions.

The course program included discussions on the professional responsibility of journalists, the basics of legal culture, practical exercises on working with artificial intelligence tools, as well as methodological materials.

The training course was conducted by two national trainers — Serdar Agaev, Head of the Department for Organization of Activities of the Courts of the Supreme Court of Turkmenistan, and Dayanch Konarov, a journalist of the Turkmen information-service internet portal "Türkmenportal." The invited expert (online) was Duman Smakov (Kazakhstan), representing the International Center for Journalism MediaNet.

As noted by Ambassador William Leaf, the Head of the OSCE Center in Ashgabat, being a full member of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Turkmenistan is actively developing multilateral partnerships covering political, economic, environmental, and human dimensions. The OSCE assists Turkmenistan in implementing the National Action Plan on Human Rights for 2021-2025, especially in areas concerning media freedom and freedom of expression. This cooperation helps form a national reserve of specialists and trainers in the field of media literacy, which is becoming especially relevant amid the rapid development of digital technologies.

The recent training was already the second conducted by the national trainers. As participants noted, it was a great pride for them to learn from specialists among the national staff who understand well the internal specifics of media structures and purposefully adapted the training to their professional tasks.

Regular holding of such courses allows not only improving the qualifications of media representatives but also strengthening the potential of national experts, creating a foundation for the further promotion of media and legal literacy in the country.