Italy. Not even President of the Republic call dented the silence on journalists threatened

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OSSIGENO September 20, 2024 – Not even a strong call of the Italian President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella broke the great silence that has always surrounded and hidden the problem of the rampant tide of intimidation, aggression and threats that every year in Italy affects Italian journalists who publish news that are unwelcome to those in power.

President Mattarella tried to break that silence on July 24, 2024, four days after the vile attack on the Turin reporter Andrea Joly (beaten because he was photographing and filming a CasaPound party without the permission of those concerned). He intervened after the attempts to blame the attacked person and to debase the prerogatives and rights of journalists.

In a speech at the Quirinale (READ IT) Sergio Mattarella gave a brief master class on freedom of the press, recalling what journalists are allowed to do everywhere the rule of law is in force. And he recalled the responsibilities and duties of politics, reminding everyone that “every act against free information, every reduction of it to fake news, is a subversive act”.

That occasion was propitious to break the media and political silence on the majority of threats to journalists. The presidente spoke in front of journalists and chief editors of the most eminent daily and tv magazines, invited for the traditional exchange of greetings with the head of state before the summer break. The topic addressed by Mattarella was current and his considerations (which Ossigeno has re-proposed in an article) deserved to be widely disseminated, commented on, discussed, made known to readers and viewers.

Despite all this, Sergio Mattarella’s speech had little resonance, some reports, few comments. It was relegated to the Quirinale website archive.

Evidently for Italian newspapers the issue of intimidation of journalists is taboo: it should not be discussed even to refute it, even if, as the President said, “in recent times, there has been an increase in protests, intimidation, if not aggression, against journalists, who find themselves documenting facts” as is their duty.

Let say what is the great silence we are speaking about. While Ossigeno per l’Informazione has not only reported but fully documented thousands and thousands of these attacks ioccurred in Italy in recent years, newspapers and tv have dealt only with an infinitesimal part of this great tide.

To be precise, Ossigeno has documented 7,200 attacks against journalists and freedom of the press, from 2006 to today. Furthermore, in 2016, unveiling official data from the Ministry of Justice, it showed that every year in Italy an average of six thousand (yes, six thousand) of specious legal actions are activated against them, 90 percent of which today we can define as SLAPPs, that is actions carried out through the misuse of the judicial machine to obscure freedom of information and limit the full participation of citizens in public life.

The news most obscured by the newspapers concerns the very existence and consistence of a question seriius to face, because concerns thousands journalists threatened in Italy every year . The blackout, although it is not self-confessed, appears intentional, having been activated now also in the face of a strong concern expressed by the Head of State.

We will see until when, faced with such a call, the newspapers and their directors will maintain in force the tacit rule of showing to readers and viewers only a small part of the problem, diminishing its scope, as it happens since years with the choice fo reporting only that intimidations that hit the most popular and famous journalists and commentators and those coming from political and government figures.

These intimidations certainly deserve great attention. But it is misleading to talk only about them, leaving in the shadows the intimidations, much more numerous, aimed at lesser-known, weaker, often precarious, poorly paid and defenseless journalists. There are many more of them and they too deserve attention and visibility. Many times, as Ossigeno has shown in these years, they also need public solidarity, help and assistance, to continue to do their work with a straight back. ASP