Poland's leading newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, is playing host to 21 journalism students to test Poland's readiness to host football's 2012 Euro championship. The students, from City University London, will visit Poland's 21 biggest cities in a nine-day trip starting this weekend.
The project, called Mission 21, is also an experiment by the newspaper into the journalistic effectiveness of social media tools. So, aside from their role as "referees" for the football event, students will be blogging and using Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to share their experiences.
Grzegorz Piechota, a senior editor at the paper, says that the student visit "is a bit like having a look in the mirror at ourselves."Professor George Brock, City's head of journalism, says: "It is a unique chance for 21 of our best students to do some hands-on reporting in a foreign country, the kind of chance they are not likely to have again until well into their journalistic careers."