Q Code Mag

Q Code Mag is the result of a collective layoff. Its founders worked for Peace Reporter, the monthly magazine of the non-governmental organisation Emergency, which was shut down in 2012 due to the global financial crisis. Journalists Angelo Miotto and Christian Elia, together with four other former employees of the media outlet, decided to set up Q Code Mag.

Elia remarked: "It went online on June 20, 2013, not an accidental date as it is the anniversary of the last sorcery trial. Our mission is to fight journalism devoted to witch-hunting." The name Q Code recalls the creation of a universal language in the radio industry; in the same way, the magazine aims to offer an interpretation of the reality in which everybody can mirror one-self.

Q Code Mag kept some pillars of Peace Reporter, namely mixing journalism and research, narrative and explanatory journalism, and the decolonisation of knowledge, where it is hosting personal stories instead of the chronicles of foreign correspondents.

The independent media network Indymedia inspired them to develop a network of "antennas" worldwide, composed of local activists, civil society organisations and academics. Over 400 people have contributed to the media outlet so far, for free.

Miotto and Elia founded the Q Code Social Club association to carry out training initiatives and projects.

In 2019, the organisation started releasing a biannual magazine in collaboration with the publishing Prospero, but the partnership soon failed. In 2022, it re-started as a quarterly monographic magazine with the publishing Flegrea. Every issue tackles a different topic. Elia described the magazine as a vocabulary of slow journalism, and it has 60 readers subscribed. He expects the magazine to become the primary source of revenue in the near future.