A group of 30 foreign journalists who took part in Anadolu Agency's (AA) online Energy Journalism Training successfully completed the program on Wednesday, Sept. 9.
The AA's News Academy in collaboration with the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA), as part of its journalist-training program, organized the three-day-long course that ran via videoconference between Sept. 7 and Sep. 9.
This is the Agency's first training program that was designed for online delivery due to coronavirus strict travel rules.
The course aimed to help correspondents in Azerbaijan, Algeria, The Gambia, Georgia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Mozambique and Ukraine to enrich their knowledge in the energy field to focus on this sector in their journalism careers.
The participants received training in subjects ranging from energy news writing and reporting techniques, international energy institutions and energy economics, energy diplomacy and global energy policies.
Anadolu Agency’s News Academy Director Cihangir Isbilir said the program would be followed up with a second and third phase through face-to-face course delivery when the Covid-19 pandemic subsides.
- Journalists' comments on training program is 'positive'
Commenting on his first energy journalism-training program, Kebba Jeffang, a Gambian journalist stressed the importance of learning the very basic issues around energy as a journalist to be able to conduct his watchdog role.
“It [the program] couldn't have come at any better time than now when Gambia is beginning to widen its economic scope in the extractive industry such as black sand mining and possible oil production in the near future.'
Journalist Ruzin Gorcin, who works for Bayrak Radio and Television Corporation in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), said the online energy program was very enlightening particularly on Turkey’s activities in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea and other countries' coverage of these activities.
By Gulsen Cagatay
Anadolu Agency
energy@aa.com.tr