14 Aug 09 | Uncategorized
This is a guest post by Giulio D’Eramo
Italy’s state-owned broadcaster RAI withdrew its five RAISat channels from News Corp’s Sky Italia satellite platform this month. The news came just a week after the official launch of a new RAI-Mediaset cable platform (TivuSat) to see off competition from Sky. Mediaset is part of Silvio Berlusconi’s media empire.
The General Confederation of Labour, the largest trade union in Italy, has commented that it is “bizarre that RAI is rejecting the economic certainty of a contract with Sky, especially in view of the reduced advertising income due to the economic downturn”. The National Federation of the Press stated: “We cannot avoid observing that the whole negotiation was marred by consistent and regular interventions by the government, and that the final outcome is the most favourable to the prime minister’s company. It is up to RAI’s executives to prove that the decision was not driven by Berlusconi’s personal interests”.
With many media analysts and politicians raising the same concerns, on 10 August the RAI General Director Masi — who was nowhere to be found in the days following the withdrawal — claimed that the use of all RAI channels would have been a driving force for the Sky platform and that RAI would have been exposed to a potential multi-million loss in revenue once the RAI-Mediaset platform began working at full capacity.
In Italy, anyone who owns a television has to pay a licence fee, as in the UK. It costs around 110 euros per year. In my own home in Rome, I don’t receive the analogue air-signal, so I became a Sky client years ago. Now I am in the peculiar situation of being obliged to pay 110 euros per year to RAI, while not enjoying any of the services. I am in fact being forced to switch from Sky to the RAI-Mediaset cable platform.
The whole situation was best summarised by Corriere della Sera’s media analyst A Grasso: “With the switchover to digital and pay-TV, the battle is not between Mediaset and RAI, but between Mediaset and Sky. And RAI seems to have decided to side with Mediaset.” However, it is RAI (ie the Italian taxpayer) and not Mediaset (ie the prime minister) that is set to bear the costs of this media war. Giuseppe Giulietti, spokesman for the freedom of speech organisation Articolo21 says “the creation of a RAI-Mediaset TV monopoly is now a reality. It may well be a coincidence, but the plans of the P2 (the infamous Masonic lodge that numbered Berlusconi and leading establishment figures amongst its members) included the creation of a monopolistic agency for information and the progressive dismantling of state TV.
Berlusconi now seems to be extending his control of Italian television. On 6 August, RAI named its new directors. Among the nominees, there is one who stands out as controversial and possibly not legitimate: the former director of Padania, the daily of Berlusconi’s allied party Lega Nord, is due to step in as vice-director of RAI1. However, RAI1 can only appoint an outside director if it is unable to find a suitable candidate within the organisation.
The main TV channels did not report the revelations about Berlusconi’s controversial sexual habits in detail, but chiefly broadcast comments from leading politicians. Only RAI3 (by far the smallest of RAI channels, especially in terms of budget) dared to take the risk of disturbing the PM’s holidays by reporting some of the taped conversations.
Berlusconi made his annoyance known on 7 August: “We no longer want nor can accept that our state TV is the only one in the world to criticise [its] government.”
The Union of RAI Journalists (USIGRAI) immediately replied: “We also think that we no longer want nor can accept that our state TV, paid for by each and every Italian family, is the only TV in the world to support the personal economical/political interests of our PM Silvio Berlusconi.”
The leader of Italy of Values (IdV) centrist party and former Milan prosecutor A Di Pietro added: “Only in the worst dictatorship does one expect the media to exercise self-censorship, and Berlusconi’s latest comments show us that this is the way we’re headed. The government has shifted from isolating single journalists to the exercise of systematic psychological violence, which is known to be only one small step away from physical violence.”
30 Jun 09 | Uncategorized
On 13 June, a draft law limiting journalists’ ability to provide the public with vital information was passed in the lower house of the Italian parliament and now awaits the senate’s approval. Unions representing lawyers, journalists and editors have all expressed their firm opposition, organising a series of events, including a conference last week and another planned for tomorrow in Rome, and promoting a petition to stop the law, which has 260,000 signatories –– and counting.
In recent years, the Italian press has published transcripts of private conversations obtained through wiretapping. Some of these transcripts were relevant to ongoing trials; others were not. Both exposed left and right-wing politicians alike to public anger and sometimes embarrassment. To gain popular support, the government is arguing that the exceptionally high number of tapped phone lines (estimated to be around 300,000) justifies their plan to fast-track the law through parliament. Two years ago, the Prodi government unsuccessfully tried to pass a similar law.
Among the restrictions outlined in the draft is a provision making it illegal for journalists and editors to publish information about a trial (on wiretaps or anything else) until the preliminary investigations are over, even if these documents are already in the public domain. Punishment can be up to 30 days in jail, plus a €10, 000 fine for journalists and €465,000 fine for editors. “This implies censorship of news that could be very relevant to most citizens. For example, under the new law, the press would not have been able to report on the Parmalat scandal for many years,” said Franco Siddi, general secretary of the Italian Press Federation (FNSI). Similar concerns were expressed by both the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) and the International Press Institute (IPI).
In addition, the new law will make it illegal to publish extracts from wiretaps not relevant to trials. For journalists, this could lead to the maximum sentence of three years in prison.
Under the new law, prosecutors will only be allowed to wiretap individuals for a maximum of 30 days. They can do so only if they have strong criminal evidence, and only when the maximum punishment for the alleged crime exceeds five years in prison. These evidence requirements are less strict when the alleged crime involves organised crime or terrorism. “Theoretically we can still perform investigations on criminal organisations such as the Mafia, but the five-year limit implies that we will not be allowed to wire-tap for typical Mafia crimes such as extortion,” said Giuseppe Cascini, secretary of the supreme court.
“It is a serious blow to everybody’s security and a great help for a lot of criminals,” said Giancarlo Caselli, head prosecutor in Turin. “If this law was already effective the arrests made [of activists allegedly trying to rebuild the Red Brigades] would not have been carried out,” said Olga D’antona, MP and widow of Massimo d’Antona, killed in the 1990s by the new Red Brigades.
23 Jun 09 | Index Index, minipost
The Italian trial of four Google executives accused of defamation for allowing a video to be posted online showing an autistic youth being abused, will begin today. They deny all charges and say the case is “a direct attack on a free and open internet”. Read more here
12 Jun 09 | Uncategorized
Antonio Zappadu, the paparazzo who famously snapped Silvio Berlusconi’s topless party guests, told La Repubblica today that he plans to sell a further set of photographs to the foreign media.
When news of Zappadu’s pictures of Berlusconi’s private parties first broke, the prime minister’s lawyer moved to have them confiscated. Zappadu was been accused of blackmail, and allegedly attempted to sell the photographs to Berlusconi’s magazine Panorama. The pictures then appeared in Spanish newspaper El Pais, allowing Italian newspapers to publish them by reproducing the pages of the Spanish newspaper. Berlusconi is now suing El Pais and La Repubblica for invading his privacy. Zappadu is also waiting to hear if he will face prosecution.
Media coverage has been surprisingly detailed by Italian standards. La Repubblica, owned by Berlusconi’s arch business rival Carlo De Benedetti, had already been running a five-month campaign in which Zappadu’s party pictures were just the latest ammunition.
So how did the different papers deal with the story?
Il Giornale, Libero (both right-wing, Il Giornale is owned by Berlusconi’s brother)
Il Giornale is oriented towards a Catholic readership. It reported the scandal and did not use it as a pretext to attack the centre-left, as it usually does. The newspaper downplayed Berlusconi’s use of the presidential plane to bring his guests to the party.
Libero highlighted the invasion of privacy. It raised the question of security (Zappadu’s camera “could have been a rifle”) and portrayed the party as an innocent gathering.
“Mr Berlusconi, talking about the seizure of the shots picturing last year New Year’s Eve party, said that with this story we’ve at last ‘hit the bottom, thanks to this outright intrusion in my private life. Nobody should tolerate an unauthorised photographer peeping in your house through the windows. I saw the pictures: they are completely useless, so much so that Panorama would not have bought them anyway, not even for 10 000 euros’.”
Avvenire (Vatican newspaper)
Avvenire did not openly back La Repubblica’s campaign. It reported the story correctly but gave it little space. Berlusconi’s coalition remains a key supporter of the Vatican’s interests.
La Repubblica (the main newspaper of press media group Espresso, owned by Carlo De Benedetti, close to the centre-left PD party)
La Repubblica a moderate centre-left newspaper, but maintains a hard line on Berlusconi. It started and promoted the “10 questions to Mr Berlusconi” campaign: This was triggered by revelations about Berlusconi’s friendship with Noemi Letizia. The newspaper published a letter from Berlusconi’s wife denouncing her husband.
Mr Berlusconi, being asked by a La Repubblica journalist about the famous ten questions, said: “I will not answer Repubblica. I already answered and they told me I was sick. I told them: it’s you who are sick, sick from envy and political hate.” Later he added: “It is a private matter, so the seizure is not an attack on freedom of the press; don’t you see yourselves as ridiculous when claiming that in Italy there is no freedom of the press? To joke about it is just fine, but when it becomes a serious allegation and it is picked up by foreign newspapers it hurts Italy and its citizens.”
Il Corriere della Sera (Italy’s largest newspaper, RCS Group, pro-government)
Il Corriere della Sera downplayed the Noemi scandal, but widely reported the photographs, especially regarding the illegal private use of state assets (i.e. the presidential plane). It published a picture of a young Flamenco dancer getting off the plane.
“this time Lodo Alfano [law giving Berlusconi immunity from prosecution] won’t work”. In fact the “Lodo” protects Berlusconi from any legal action concerning his activities as a private citizen, not as a prime minister.
Il Sole 24 Ore (the Financial Times of Italy)
Il Sole 24 Ore covered the scandal soberly, its usual style.
“Antonio di Pietro, leader of Italia dei Valori states that to use the presidential plane (with military personnel) to bring singers, dancers and soubrettes to his private residence to spice up his parties is definitely a crime.”
“PD [centre-left party] leader Franceschini says: ‘The last Prodi government had passed very stiff rules regarding state flights.’ According to the Espresso magazine, in less than one year [the expenses for state flights] more than tripled, to a total cost of 60 million euros [last August, Berlusconi’s government changed those rules, making them much less strict].”
La Stampa (Turin-based newspaper, voice of the Fiat group, always tied to the government)
Alongside Il Corriere della Sera, La Stampa held back criticism of Berlusconi’s use of his plane.
