This site, which you clicked on and decided to explore, is called XQ the News, where XQ stands for ‘why’ (XQ is read POR QUÉ? in Spanish). So, the ‘why’ of the news.
The ambition is precisely to explain, or to discover with the reader, what lies behind the news that every day makes up and fills the news landscape in which we are immersed. We find ourselves in an epochal context in which the spread of fake news, on the one hand, and the overload of information, infodemics, on the other, are fuelling the loss of readers’ trust in the media. According to a Statista study on ‘Media use in Europe’, in 2019 only 19% of European citizens had a high level of trust in the media, while 40% had little or no trust. A trend that this digital newspaper wants to try to curb, especially among younger readers. In order to get an insight into the mechanisms that discover and transform a fact into news, the XQ.EUJOY consortium that produces and publishes the content of XQ the News has developed, thanks to funds from the European call for proposals CREA-CROSS-2022-JOURPART, an additional tool that will allow some of our young readers to enter the ‘kitchen’ of the newspaper. It is a competition that will allow a handful of aspiring European journalists to combine their passion for journalism with their desire for a training experience abroad.
The competition
The competition is aimed at students between 18 and 25 years of age, both boys and girls, who are passionate about journalism and are studying in the national education system of the three countries participating in the network: Italy, Portugal, and Spain. To participate, contestants only need to send a CV in Europass format and a motivation letter of 4,000 characters (spaces included) in English.
The deadline for uploading both documents to
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScEC6ui64OkH0ohIRdCQAquBXj_rwv8EgiLd0j1udjq_5Bhqg/viewform is 15 June 2024. The results will be announced on 20 June 2024. Participation in the competition is completely free of charge and naturally implies acceptance of all the points contained in the call for entries; failure to accept even one of these points will invalidate participation in the competition.
Entries will be evaluated by a special jury, composed of members suggested by the consortium’s network of transnational partners, namely the Italian Idea Dinamica and Dataninja, the Portuguese Aspea – Associação portuguesa de educação ambiental and the Spanish Ediciones Octaedro and Fondazione Periodisme Plural. Thanks to this international network, which promotes exchanges between countries in southern Europe and the Mediterranean, the selected young people will have access to a week-long international seminar in Italy, Spain, or Portugal, during which they will produce articles and radio and television reports, working hand in hand with their peers of other nationalities. There will be nine final winners: three from each participating country. It is important to note that knowledge of the language of the country in which they will be competing is not required, but a good knowledge of their mother tongue and a good command of English is sufficient.
The idea of this initiative is to offer a great opportunity to young people by awarding a scholarship to each of the winners, which will allow them to cover their travel, living and accommodation expenses and thus participate in journalistic internships. In addition, participants will also have access to an exclusive online training course on data journalism, one of the most advanced frontiers of journalism today and in the future.
Against the ‘hate cabinets’
These scholarships are just an extension of the basic idea behind the XQ The News website: to combat online disinformation, which represents a growing social threat, especially for younger people, who often lack the skills to distinguish between real news and fake news. The European Commission has an action plan to combat this phenomenon. It promotes media literacy and supports independent fact-checkers. Media literacy becomes a fundamental part of the civic education of every citizen of tomorrow to counter the spread of disinformation and protect democratic values.
XQ EUJOY carried out a comprehensive analysis of the ‘sources’ from which European teenagers, particularly those in the three project partner countries, drink when they want to be informed.
In Italy
Amnesty International Italy measured the online hate conveyed by political candidates’ statements: 91% of posts reported for their hate speech, on Facebook and Twitter, target migrants and immigrants, and 32% convey fake news and manipulated data (source: Amnesty International, ‘The Online Hate Barometer’, 2019-2021). According to the OECD, only 54% of Italian teenagers are able to distinguish between reliable information and fake news, compared to the average of 47%.
In Spain
67% of the Spanish population is concerned about the difficulty of finding reliable sources of information, and 42% say they are worried about fake news related to the pandemic. The University of Navarra’s Digital News Report 2021 highlights growing public concern about the difficulty of finding reliable sources of information, with 67% of respondents worried about disinformation, well above the global average of 58%. In addition, 42% of respondents are particularly alarmed by fake news related to the pandemic being spread by the government, national parties, and politicians, compared to an average of 27% in the other countries surveyed. Half (50%) say they are alarmed by misinformation circulating on social media and instant messaging applications.
In Portugal
According to the report Hate Speech and LGBTQI+ Pride in the digital conversation, published last year, homophobic or transphobic hate messages on social networks increased by 185% between 2019 and 2022. And even if we leave the European space for a moment, but remain in the Lusophone sphere, in the Brazil of former president Jair Bolsonaro, hate had a kind of hidden ministerial cabinet, the hate cabinet, a working group piloted by the president’s son, Carlos Bolsonaro. All this was made possible by stirring the murky waters of fake news fabricated ad personam.
The underlying ambition of these scholarships is not only to train a new generation of journalists, but above all to raise a new generation of readers more aware and prepared to face the new challenges and more sophisticated threats that compromise coexistence in our democracies.
For more information, please write an e-mail to: info@ideadinamica.com or check the announcement here https://xqeujoyproject.eu/2024/03/20/call-for-an-internship-abroad-in-journalism/
