Press freedoms and diversity of the press have long been contentious issues in Italy ever since the current Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi secured almost 90% of the entire private Italian media market. Berlusconi, who has been rapt in scandals and corruption charges since his first stint as prime minister in 1994, seems immune as he continues to flaunt his enormous wealth while offering disparaging remarks about journalists who dare criticize him.
He owns one of Italy’s largest press and book publication companies (Mondadori) as well as three commercial television channels under the umbrella of Mediaset. His daughter is president of Mondadori and his son is vice-president of Mediaset.
And as prime minister, he has considerable influence over RAI, Italy’s state-owned TV broadcaster and once even fired two its journalists in 2002. His flagrant disregard for press freedoms and open contempt has many on edge.
It is little wonder that Freedom House currently ranks Italy as having one of the lowest press freedoms in Western Europe. But while debate on eroding press freedoms in Italy is nothing new, it has taken on a renewed ampler inside Italy and in the rest of Europe.
Last month 48 editors-in-chief and leading journalists from 19 countries adopted and signed the “European Charter on Freedom of the Press” in Hamburg. The charter’s primary objective is to unify Europe’s journalism and serves as a tool to invoke its principles in case of violations. So far, only one Italian journalist from Corriere della Sera has dared sign the charter.
Mondadori recently refused to publish a book by Portuguese Nobel laureate Jose Saramago because of the following sentence:
“In the land of the Mafia and the Camorra, how important is the proven fact that the prime minister is a delinquent?”
But perhaps most astonishingly is the recent flurry of activity from an openDemocracy article that has put forth a series of questions to the prime minister. Journalists in Italy as well as Italians and one the country’s few newspapers not owned by Belusconi – La Repubblica, appear to be rallying for more civic engagement and a restoration of democracy. Some of the comments offer lengthy analyses while others are pleading for help.
Check it out here.
