23 June 2010

Journalism school

The fact that I am obliged for the umpteenth time to defend myself from matters that have been amply proved in the courts, does not surprise me. I have spent half my life defending myself from the attempts to discredit me. Antonio Di Pietro is a person who is unpopular with the politics of the Palace, given that in this environment there’s in force a strange rule according to which if you are not blackmailable, you are out of the pack. I am outside the pack and I am proud of that.
In fact, what worries me most is the comatose state of the news provision in Italy, and that relates across the board to the main daily papers and the national TV news programmes. This is a situation that I would not know how to describe better than Marco Travaglio has done in the editorial he wrote today in "Il Fatto Quotidiano" that is published below.


Journalism school
Rather than the fact itself, that has already been chewed over and ruminated on for 6 years with all the investigations being shelved, the recording of Di Pietro’s name in the register of those under investigation, for the age-old polemics about the reimbursement of election expenses in 2004 is enlightening because of the way it is handled by the "advocates of civil liberties" newspapers: those that come out every day not to provide news, but to cover up the shameful things of their editors who are convicts or defendants. Let’s start with “Il Giornale” (Berlusconi) and “Libero” (Angelucci). The day before yesterday, Feltri displayed his tears because don Gelmini was sent for trial for sexual abuse: “That that protagonist of murky events finishes up in the newspapers is an atrocious suffering for everyone” (and he knows something about that having pasted onto the front page a false police news item about Boffo’s homosexuality). Now in fact he uses the headline: “HE’LL LEARN” “Former prosecutor in trouble. If he were consistent, he would have to leave Parliament”. “Not even the umpteenth scandal (sic – editor) will convince Tonino to give up claiming to be the model of the rule of law.”
Here we are: the facts count for nothing. What’s important is to be able to put Di Pietro and Berlusconi on the same level in a night when all the cows are black and thus to expel the moral issue from political debate. “Libero”, the satirical insert in the newspaper “Il Giornale”, has the following heading on the front page: “WHERE HAS HE PUT THE MONEY?” Is it talking about the bribes of the Angelucci family or of Berlusconi? No. It’s talking about the reimbursement of the IDV election expenses. Belpietro (have you understood well: Belpietro) is grumbling because Di Pietro “has come out pure as a lily” from all the investigations, in fact he even dares to “have the attitude of being the victim of slanderers and political opponents": yes, well, 30 court actions in Brescia all based on nothing and finishing up as nothing are only a few. To have the attitude of being the victim you have to decriminalise your own crimes and get off scot free with amnesties, Statute of Limitations, Cirielli, “lodo Schifarli” or “Al Fano”, legitimate impediment. But this time the advocate of civil liberties, Belpietro has great hopes that Di Pietro will be arrested: “We are waiting for phase 2, that of the clean handcuffs, one day it will happen” as long as they find “a true judge”.

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Marco Travaglio

Posted by Antonio Di Pietro in Information