21 May 2010

Standing by Santoro, as always

They’ve finally managed: the politicians, that is, in the person of Masi who played the role of executioner on this occasion, have finally managed to send Santoro on early retirement, and that just when Tremonti is trying to stop anyone going on pension at all in order to save money.

No one can deny the fact that Santoro had the knack of really ticking off the politicians of both the majority and the opposition, indeed everyone except the Italia dei Valori, so much so that just to be finally rid of him they have gone ahead and blown a 10 million Euro hole in the budget just to be able to cancel the contract for ‘Annozero’. I hasten to add that Santoro deserves every penny he gets in return for having had to endure this mobbing by a bunch of yobs.

I also have to say that it was absolutely insane for them to go spend this amount of public money to get rid of the best journalist on the block. A balance sheet loss that is indeed far worse than merely the money they are offering Santoro, especially if we also take into account the loss of market share, and therefore also of advertising revenue, that the absence of Italy’s most influential journalist will surely create in the coffers of this public company. An incalculable loss for RAI that also just happens to once again benefit Mediaset (no surprise there!) as happened in the battle against Sky TV..

But what is the reason for this foolhardy and unjustified expense? How have we let ourselves get to this point? I’ll leave it to the editorial in today’s edition of “Il Fatto Quotidiano” written by one of Santoro’s most ardent followers and close friend, Marco Travaglio, to describe and to explain what they would rather we forget about this often censured, persecuted, criticised, threatened and humiliated Santoro who was nevertheless always on the front line as a tiger of the press. Once again we wish to express all our support to Santoro and urge him to continue his vehement battle for freedom of information. A battle that all the citizens of this Country, all the movements and the public desperately need, just as a diver needs oxygen, seeing that here in Italy we have all been submerged in a sea of corruption, institutional decay and political propaganda.

Annozero, the final scene

It may be simply because Santoro so loves the movies, but his destiny dictates that he should always appear in the final scene and that the rest of the movie be forgotten. Everyone remembers that he moved to Mediaset back in ’96, but everyone forgets that he had been shown the door by the Ulivo’s RAI and the fact is that, here in Italy, a television journalist can only really work either for RAI or for Mediaset, or else he doesn’t work at all. Everyone remembers that in 2005 he stood election in the European Union elections, but everyone forgets that at that stage he hadn’t worked for three years, since the Bulgaro Edict, or perhaps worse still, he was being paid not to work. Now everyone is focusing on the agreement to get him out of RAI, but everyone forgets the four Seasons of ANNOZERO: not so much because of the many political attacks from the right wing the centre and the left-wing (indeed these are like medals of valour), but more so because of the daily guerrilla warfare, far beyond any mobbing, conducted by the company against the most popular, cheapest to produce and most profitable discussion programme on Italian television. I don’t know any of the precise details of the agreement, but what I do know is that Michele, who was due to go on pension in 2016, will receive three times his annual salary as presenter (one third of what Vespa gets paid) and he will not be subject to any restraint of trade. Nor do I have any idea how he intends to pass the time in future, other than to continue with his docu-fiction programmes. In other words, I have no idea what the final scene will show. However, I know only too well what the previous scenes have shown. I know that last autumn, in accordance with orders received from above, RAI was using any excuse to prevent the annual seasonal resumption of the ANNOZERO programme. I also know that during the press conference called to announce the resumption of ANNOZERO, the Director of RaiDue also said that, had it been up to him, there was no way that Santoro would have gone on air again (at which point his station’s ratings would have dropped to below zero). I know that for the rest of the year we kept on hearing about wiretapped conversations between Trani, Berlusconi and his hangers-on within Rai, Agcom, the Controlling Body and even the Upper Council of the Magistrature who were plotting to shut down ANNOZERO. I also know that, in April, Rai lodged an appeal with the Court of Cassation against the ruling that obliged the company to put ANNOZERO back on air, thereby subjecting Santoro to another three years of legal battles against the company for which he was working (in addition to the seven previous years of battles). I know that our esteemed opposition parties studiously ignored the entire matter. Indeed, they immediately agreed to support the majority’s call for Santoro’s removal, only to then stir up controversy because – a horrible thing to say – he will take the money and go, rather than leave it for RAI, which has been so good to him. I know that no one can continue indefinitely to work for a company that doesn’t want him. One that not only never says thank you, but then also continues to kick him in the teeth at every turn. Santoro managed to keep it up for four years, more because of political tenacity than professional reasons, at the expense of his guts and his nervous system and spurred on by daily telephone calls, threats, bullets, pressure, warnings, fines, rebukes, sabotage, spanners in the works and mudslinging in the press and on the television (even on RaiDue), as well as his drive for fair treatment, a questioning nature, justness and balance, Travaglio’s contract, Vauro’s cartoons and Ruotulo’s smears. The kind of treatment that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, never mind one of my best friends. We shouldn’t be surprised therefore if the pressure cooker has finally blown its lid and the bird has flown the coop. It certainly is a great loss for Television in general and even more so for RAI and the politicians behind it, even thug the losers are only too happy to be so. It is important to note that, looking back on the entire ANNOZERO movie, scene by scene, that we would never have got to this point if the political parties and the television broadcasters had only respected the principle of freedom of information, in other words, if they had only respected the Constitution. However, on one particular March evening, at the Paladozza of Bologna, we discovered that there is indeed life after Rai, that there is indeed life after television and that there is life after the political parties. Today, the public of the Paladozza feel lost, perhaps even betrayed due to a lack of communication (Santoro is prevented from saying anything until the agreement has been signed) and the regime disinformation, which, as happened in Biagi’s case, has depicted him as a greedy man that is only interested in money (totally ignoring the fact that here in Italy a man can earn far more by arse-creeping, bowing and scraping). Whatever the case may be, I simply cannot picture Michele as a pensioner sitting on some park bench. And the public of the Paladozza, well, there is no way that they will accept defeat.

Marco Travaglio

Posted by Antonio Di Pietro in Information