AJMI – Doha

As part of "Al Jazeera Ambassadors" initiative, Al Jazeera Media Institute concluded a training course on news verification held in Damascus in cooperation with Media Development Academy. The three-day course took place from 13 to 15 of September 2025, and was delivered by trainer Hadi Kharrat, covering a total of 18 training hours.

Fifteen journalists, both men and women, participated in the course, aiming to develop their skills in verifying news and fact-checking before publication. The course addressed several key themes, most notably distinguishing between accurate and misleading news, and stressed importance of verifying all types of content, whether written, photographic, or video-based.

The trainer ensured that participants were equipped with essential verification tools, including detecting fake accounts, tracing information sources, methods of video verification and using reverse image search. The course also featured practical exercises, where participants conducted hands-on exercises verifying circulated images and videos, analyzing real cases of misinformation, in addition to learning ethics of journalistic verification.

It is worth noting that Hadi Kharrat is a journalist specializing in monitoring and news verification. He joined Al Jazeera in 2019 through Sanad News Verification Agency. He has extensive experience in journalism, media coverage, and fact-checking, and has also contributed to delivering training courses through Al Jazeera Ambassadors initiative for media students and journalists in Syria.