A two-day training session for representatives of the national media on covering environmental issues was held at the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat, according to IIC of Turkmenistan.

The event was attended by staff from state media, television and leading online media platforms. The Head of the OSCE Centre, Ambassador William Leaf, delivered a welcome address, noting that the modern security ecosystem is directly linked to the state of the environment and the public’s access to reliable information.

Participants studied a practical guide to environmental journalism published by UNESCO and the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media. Under the guidance of expert Angelina Davydova, they discussed international trends and developed media projects in small groups.

A separate section of the programme was devoted to the application of artificial intelligence in newsroom work, the ethical aspects of its use and countering misinformation. Media trainer Marat Sadykov and AI implementation expert Batyr Rejepov introduced the journalists to the tools Gemini Notebook, ChatGPT and Typeless, which enable the processing of large data sets, the transcription of audio recordings and the structuring of content.

The experts emphasised that artificial intelligence can only act as an assistant, whilst the responsibility for fact-checking, analysis and writing style remains with the journalist.