On May 2, 2024, Internews Kosova held a training session with students of the AAB College in Prishtina, on the field of disinformation and fact-checking.

This training was held as part of the project “Strengthening the integrity of the media: Promoting Fact-Checking and combating disinformation in Kosovo”, financed by the European Union, CFI (Media Development Agency) and implemented by Internews Kosova.

During this highly interactive training session, Visar Prebreza – managing editor at Kallxo.com emphasized the importance of fact-checking to students and future journalists. With concrete examples that he researched and published such as the cases of Devolli or the Hydropower plants – research that both has won journalistic awards – he spoke in more detail about the methodology, the process, and the difficulties of the entire research journey, which from time to time also faced obstacles such as the non-direct threats he received or even now knowing when the Court took decision, which happened at times when the society was distracted by other news and did not pay attention to corruption cases or affairs.

Prebreza highlighted how important it is to be attentive in receiving information since no source should be overlooked or not taken seriously, on the contrary, every source is valuable and then that information before it becomes news should be verified, always giving all parties the opportunity for their version of the event.

This training was attended by 17 students, out of which 14 were women. The attending students were very active making this training session very interactive by asking questions on different cases and personal experiences on specific matters covered by different journalists. For more, the students asked from our side for another lecture at the end of May in which a journalistic research process until publication would be explained in detail by the trainer.