18 February 2008

Great Biagi, tiny public TV

In a recent interview with Gianni Riotta, director of TG1, Silvio Berlusconi, has spoken about Enzo Biagi. He revealed that he wanted to keep Biagi in the RAI and that the journalist declined his offer so that he could get a substantial end-of-employment-lump-sum. Riotta, who is the director of the most important public news broadcast did not feel it his duty to come back on that. Riotta himself had declared that he modeled himself on Biagi.
The truth is that Berlusconi, with his famous “editto bulgaro” {edict from Bulgaria} booted out Enzo Biagi because of his independence. As he did with Michele Santoro and Daniele Luttazzi.
Enzo Biagi had a great defect for the head of the PDL: he told the truth. A dead person cannot defend himself. You cannot have a face to face argument with a person who is no longer with us.
This episode is just the umpteenth of a very bad start to the election campaign on behalf of the media. A situation that highlights the inadequacy of our information system, often a medium of obvious falsities that become “truths” only because they are repeated often over time.
In its proposals for a government programme, Italia dei Valori has a radical intervention in relation to information:
- a single public TV channel without advertising, paid for with a licence fee and removed from the influence of parties
- the putting into operation of the European verdict relating to Europa 7 and the moving of Rete 4 to satellite
- the limit of a single channel for private concessionaires (like Mediaset)
- abolition of public financing of the publishing industry.

Posted by Antonio Di Pietro in Politics