The OSCE Centre in Ashgabat continues to support media reform in Turkmenistan in line with the country’s commitments within the organization. From April 21 to 23, a training course on multimedia journalism and modern digital tools was held in the capital.

The training brought together staff from print publications, online media outlets, and influencers. Expert trainers Yuri Zvyagintsev (Russian Federation) and Alexey Terekhov (participating online) presented methods for covering socially significant issues in the digital environment. The key objective of the course was to make news more accessible and engaging for a broad audience.

Today’s information landscape is characterized by rapid change and an overwhelming abundance of content. In 2025–2026, the leading trends are personalization and the integration of artificial intelligence. In the competition for audience attention, those who professionally master mobile filming techniques and methods of working with neural networks are the ones who succeed.

Particular attention during the course was given to the transition from prompt engineering to context engineering. This is the discipline of designing the context provided to AI in order to achieve the most accurate results possible. Such a systematic approach—using templates and standards—ensures consistently high-quality performance from neural networks. Today, the ability to work effectively with AI is becoming as fundamental a skill for journalists as fact-checking and strong writing.

At the same time, the experts emphasized that technology does not replace classical storytelling. The ability to create long-form narratives—stories “about people and for people”—remains an essential skill for conveying deeper meanings.

According to Rune Castberg, Acting Head of the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat, online media have now become the dominant force in the information space, which places new demands on professional training:

“Turkmenistan has been a participating State of the OSCE for nearly 35 years, and throughout this time the country has made consistent efforts to fulfill its commitments, including in the area of media development. Last year, our Centre trained a group of national media literacy trainers, who have already demonstrated excellent results. One of the objectives of this current course is to prepare a new group of specialists—this time in multimedia journalism.”