On September 8, the State TV and Radio News programmes showed themselves up for what they are: a pure extension of the Party Secretaries. A sounding box of disinformation that reached such levels that would beat Ceaucescu’s Rumania.
Hundreds of thousands of citizens, the very same ones that through the licence fee pay the salaries of the journalists and the RAI directors, thronged into the squares of Italy to sign for a draft law as a popular initiative to reform Parliament. The services of the RAI before and after the event have been shameful. For the first time in Italy, 300,000 signatures have been collected in a single day and about all this there was not even a whisper. The Italians managed without the RAI to find out about the event, they used the Internet and word of mouth.
This situation is no longer tolerable for a country that wants to consider itself civilised.
The RAI must be freed from party interference and news must be given back to the citizens. Italia dei Valori will make a move with this in mind as soon as possible.
I must admit that on Saturday and Sunday I felt sick listening to the TV news, the same that the Italians who were up to date with the events, will have felt.
A piece of advice to each RAI journalist: “Keep your head held high. You are paid to provide information, not to serve the parties.”