Yemenis learn media literacy; enjoy brief respite
The horrifying war in Yemen churns on, creating a growing humanitarian catastrophe in its wake. (See UN report). In the midst of all this, I offered a group of Yemenis few hours’ worth of escape last week. 

On Thursday, I conducted a media literacy workshop for 57 Yemeni journalists sponsored by the US Embassy in Yemen and US State Department. Most were in Yemen, but a few were scattered elsewhere in the region, in Egypt, for example.

Zennia Paganini from the US Embassy/Yemen
opens the workshop.

The 2.5 hour seminar via Zoom covered in the introductory segment a discussion about whether journalists can recognize fake news, as well as definitions of terms like mis -and dis-information. The seminar transitioned into an overview of news media literacy and its principles. Then, the journalists examined mis- and disinformation case studies, especially focusing on the “Infodemic” of false information about Covid-19.

The journalists noted that the infodemic in MENA is virulent, and takes such forms as touting unproven, traditional treatments; unscientific criticism of the vaccine; false info as to the causes of Covid; social media misinformation running counter to science; and politicized excuse-making for poor handling of the crisis.

The final segment of the seminar armed the journalists with tools useful for combating misinformation. I discussed fact checking, social media verification,  ideas on educating their readers/viewers on how to be smarter news consumers, and how to check their own work and the work of others using content analysis tools, including a coding list.

I gave them the assignment to come up with a coding list to examine MENA news stories for Covid mis and dis-information. This coding list created by the participants (with a few of my suggestions thrown in) is below:

Covid misinformation coding list
--Use to analyze for misinformation MENA media produced stories about Covid. The reviewer would examine stories and look for these terms or themes, the presence or absence of which would indicate misinformation.

Scientific proof
Theoretical, or verifiable
Sensationalizes deaths
Political sources vs. medical (doctors, WHO)
Overly emotional language/approach
Unproven cures…food, herbs
Underplaying virus…political
Vaccine dangerous themes
Vaccine 100%
Covid Not a crisis/problem
Covid Human created
Spread by (any group—Shia, Sunni, Westerners, Chinese, Jews…)

I was glad to hear positive feedback after the event. Saleh Al-Mansoob, a reporter for Al-Jumhuriya newspaper, said, “The training information has been useful to us as journalists. We learned about how we can verify misleading news and rumors. What terms should we use? How do we get real information in light of the Covid-19 pandemic? We have gained new skills. This training was thorough.” Yousra Al-Nahari, an editor at Peace Journalism Platform, said, "The training was good and informative. The training focused on how journalists verify misleading news and images on social media. The trainer indicated that through Google we can identify the misleading images and he mentioned some examples of negative results due to the spread of false news."

Under the terrible circumstances, it was my honor to offer a brief respite to the violence, and provide some information to help the journalists help their public become smarter media consumers. In a very small way, maybe this workshop planted a few seeds that might someday blossom into peace.