April 1-2, 2023

The Arab Fact-checkers Network (AFCN) from ARIJ, organised two webinars in Ramadan, on the occasion of the International Fact-Checking Day, under the SA7 project, part of the Qarib program, implemented by the French Media Development Agency (CFI) and funded by the French Development Agency (AFD). 

Enitled “Pre- and Post-Publication Fact-checking for Media Students”, more than 130 participants via Zoom attended each webinar, with more than 800 viewers on Facebook. The sessions were led by Ahmed Ashour, Investigative journalist and coach with ARIJ, and Arwa Kooli, Editor-in-Chief of TuniFact fact-checking organisation.

During the first webinar on April 1, Safa al-Ramahi, Senior Training and Innovation Officer at ARIJ, moderated the two-hour interactive session in which the trainer Ahmed Ashour gave important tips for students on the basis and principles of pre-publication fact-checking, the important qualities of the fact-checkers, and the pre-publication fact-checking methodology.

Farah Jalad, Editor at ARIJ, moderated the second webinar on April 2nd, in which the trainer Arwa Kooli presented the fundamentals and steps of post-publication fact-checking and what are the most prominent tools to use. The trainer discussed several examples and presented the most important tools used such as TinEye, Google Image, Yandex, Reveye and others.

These two sessions come within the framework of a campaign organised by AFCN on the occasion of the International Fact-Checking day under the hashtag #دقق_بالعربي, in which it announced the launch of its fact-checking “chatbot”, celebrating the efforts of Arab fact-checkers and all the efforts made by the network in recent years.

It is worth mentioning that the SA7 project aims to enhance the best practices, methodologies and tools for fact-checking in the Arab region, specifically in 4 countries facing political, economic and security challenges where the  public confidence is declining in the media: Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine and Iraq.