Without the knowing of this prestigious magazine’s editor, I recently organised a forum on information in Italy, in order to find out and understand a little more about how news is treated in this country.
A little more, at least, than what I feel is the current either-or situation of those who work in the news business. It seems that either you talk of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi as public enemy number one, in which case you are qualified as an opposition journalist, or you are automatically branded as his lackey. Apparently, there is no provision for someone to freely exercise one’s right (and duty) to report, to apply one’s critical faculties without starting the taximeter or taking an a priori viewpoint.
To be clearer still, it seems to have been acknowledged once and for all that if you write on the Repubblica you must necessarily belong to the first of the above categories, the whole newspaper being nothing more than a pretext for first-page shelling against “il Berlusca”, whereas if you write for the Giornale the reverse is true. The final result is not – as commonly stated – pluralism of information, but what I would call the “Colbertization” of the news, meaning a form of protectionism allowing only the publication of what is considered convenient. Jean Baptiste Colbert was a minister of finance in seventeenth-century France who, by manoeuvring duties and tariffs, did for national commodities what today’s front-liners are doing with the news, i.e. instrumentally “protecting” them.
Following is a summary of the forum, where the several professionally weighty colleagues who participated set out their positions, requesting as only condition for their sincerity a respectful anonymity.
Political journalist for the opposition: “I could readily write that the current policy of the [left-wing coalition] Ulivo, or the representatives thereof, consists exclusively in praying the good Lord, formerly disqualified and replaced by the Central Committee, to make Berlusconi die. But I can’t write that; perhaps [left-wing film director] Nanni Moretti might, since he’s not under contract and doesn’t depend for his future on the INGPI, the journalists’ pension fund.”
Political journalist for the majority: “If you only knew what I know about [majority MP Cesare] Previti and Berlusconian company; but I can’t write anything or I would be playing for the enemy team.”
Business reporter for both the majority and the opposition: “We can hardly write anything about the so-called strong powers, major companies, banks and so on, because the newspaper would lose their advertising accounts and we would be kicked out.”
Show-business reporter: “I can’t write all the news about films, television or theatre, otherwise I wouldn’t be given information any more, I wouldn’t be invited to opening nights, I’d lose any chance of working for [state broadcasting company] RAI and [Berlusconi-owned broadcasting company] Mediaset, I wouldn’t be invited to festivals held in nice places like Spoleto, Taormina, etc.”
Sports journalist: “I can barely write ten percent of what I know, because it’s a world full of lies and hypocrisy – if I wrote the truth I’d lose my job...”

That is the outcome of the forum, which would continue along the same lines in other sectors as well (including health information, the pharmaceutical industry, and so forth).
Do you find the subject interesting? And don’t you feel sympathy for Colbert?
(trad.Interpres- Giussano)