Youth-Editors Observatory, new project 'to separate facts from fake news'

"Information is not a product, but an essential commodity. Knowing how to distinguish the true from the false is indispensable, as is avoiding the risk that, for the digital natives, information coincides with uninterrupted streams of news without critical analysis of the consistency of each one'.

These were the words of the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, in front of students, teachers and a delegation from the Osservatorio Giovani-Editori, which celebrated 25 years of activity in Rome at the Salone delle Fontane at EUR. "For 25 years we have been working in Italian schools with our country's teachers to train young people to develop critical thinking, which makes man freer, with a view to helping the new generations to stand on their own two feet and to reason with their own heads, in order to hold their lives more tightly in their hands," commented Opge president Andrea Ceccherini.

Elena from Castelfidardo (AN), Marco from Cairo Montenotte (SV), Caterina Messina from Genzano di Roma, Tommaso from Padua, Sofia from Trento and Cecilia from Casale Monferrato (AL) questioned the Head of State on topics such as the importance of media literacy, the development of critical thinking, risks and opportunities linked to the increasing use of artificial intelligence in our society, the super partes role of the President of the Republic in our democracy, young Italians and their future in the country, young people and politics.

'Technologies are among us, not other than us. You,' Mattarella added, 'are the generation called upon to interpret the tools that are presented to use them. This entails so much potential and so many risks. It is a leap of species that science happily delivers to us'. This is why 'it is essential to build up a wealth of knowledge to avoid falling into manipulative traps'.

During the event, Andrea Ceccherini, President of the Osservatorio Permanente Giovani-Editori (Permanent Youth-Editors Observatory), retraced the main stages of the journey of a reality that today involves, as partners, 16 newspapers, 21 foundations of banking origin, 8 large companies committed to social responsibility and contributes to training almost one million Italian upper secondary school students every year in the field of media literacy with the project 'Il Quotidiano in Classe' (The Newspaper in Class): the initiative, now in its 25th edition, which brings several sources of information (Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica, Il Sole 24 Ore, Quotidiano Nazionale, La Nazione, Il Resto del Carlino, Il Giorno, La Stampa, Il Messaggero, Il Mattino, Il Gazzettino, Gazzetta del Sud, Il Giornale di Vicenza, L'Arena, Bresciaoggi, Gazzetta di Parma) of different orientations into secondary school classrooms.