Develop a critical mind

“Growing between the lines”: a third edition that has not lived up to expectations, two days full of discussions and joint projects for the future. The conference opened with introductory speech of the President of the Osservatorio Permanente Giovani-Editori, Andrea Ceccherini, who reports alarming data: in Italy, for every 1,000 inhabitants there are only 101 copies of newspapers, a given downward when you consider that in the rest of the copies are 300. the data developed countries, down, likely to build a pluralism for the few with the ruling classes who are struggling to form. This is why we must invest in culture, that’s why I was born “The Quality Information in the Classroom.” Remo Lucchi, the institute CEO of GfK Eurisko research, presenting the results of research that was conducted just under the project “The Quality Information in Class,” points out the effectiveness of such an initiative: among boys he begins to develop a critical mind, to form a stronger civic awareness, greater integration in society. We are therefore moving in the right direction but the guys have very high expectations from the newspapers from which they expect content closer to their world and their language, more understandable and less boring. This discussed the then directors of some of the most influential newspapers in the country, Stefano Folli (BBC), Paul Gambescia (Il Messaggero), Guido Gentili (Il Sole 24 Ore), Giancarlo Mazzuca (Quotidiano Nazionale), Nino Calarco (Gazzetta del Sud), and Franco Bechis (Il Tempo) with the students in the audience, with thirty of them sat on stage, creating a fierce and exciting discussion.

This edition was characterized mainly by those which are the experiences abroad: the publisher of the Los Angeles Times, John Puerner, has always been involved in the conquest of a young audience, a vital challenge for any newspaper, American and European; the publisher of the New York Post, Lachlan Murdoch, son of media Magnante Rupert, who was also involved in the daily challenge of bringing the paper to the young; Finally the President of USA Today, Craig Moon, who has attempted to outline a vision of a development of the newspapers in the years to come.
But there is only America: there is first of all Europe. That’s why the five directors of major European newspapers (Stefano Folli -Corriere della Sera – Pedro J. Ramirez -El Mundo- Gunther Nonnenmacher -Frankfurter Allgemeine- Anne Chaussebourg -The Monde- Robert Thomson -The Times), discussed with the problem of poor reading among young people, a phenomenon that is not a peculiarity of Italy alone, but also, within the process of European integration, of a first newspaper “European”, which is why Andrea Ceccherini, President of the Osservatorio wanted to launch a call all European publishers to sign an alliance to join forces and contribute to the growth of the younger generation in all of Europe.

The signing of the Memorandum of Understanding was perhaps the high point of this edition: on stage took turns, over the same Andrea Ceccherini, Guidalberto Guidi (Chairman of Gruppo Editoriale Il Sole 24 Ore), Andrea Monti Riffeser (Vice President and CEO of Gruppo Editoriale Poligrafici Editoriali), Cesare Romiti (President of Publishing group Newspapers RCS), Alfonso De Salas Castellano (President of the publishing group Unidad Editorial), Leslie F. Hinton (Executive Chairman of the group editorial News International Limited), Anne Chaussebourg (director of the editorial coordination of Le Monde), Gunther Nonnenmacher (editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), Maurizio Romiti (Managing director of RCS MediaGroup).
Finally another moment that marked this edition of the conference “Growing between the lines” was the comparison between the Senator for Life Giulio Andreotti and Senator Giuliano Amato: two characters of politics and Italian culture that discussed what the role of the “daily” in the formation of future leaders and the delicate process of European integration, a perfect synthesis of what these two days has tried to express with all its speakers.