This was but the latest failed attempt to discredit and censor Travaglio, who has become not just one of Berlusconi’s most damaging critics but also a counter celebrity of his own modest kind. It was typical of the censorship that Berlusconi has tried persistently but unsuccessfully to impose on journalistic critics since the publication in 2001 of Travaglio’s L’odore dei Soldi (‘The Smell of Money’), soon after Berluconi’s election as prime minister. In this bestselling book Travaglio documented Berlusconi’s connections with the mafia. After Travaglio had presented his evidence of the mafia origins of Berlusconi’s initial business capital in a 20-minute interview with comedian Lutazzi, the newly-elected PM promptly ordered the sacking of Luttazzi and a couple of other popular TV journalists.
Travaglio has persisted, publishing well-documented books (two per year since 2004) about our PM’s legal problems, the threat he represents for freedom of expression and his governments’ misdoings. The reward for his work has been a stream of legal charges for defamation, all of which he has won.
Books, regular appearances on the website of Beppe Grillo – comedian-cum-voice of a disparate movement, symbolically and literally giving two fingers to the political class – did not satisfy the determination of Travaglio and his colleagues to transform Italy’s politics and press. Last September, he and others founded a new daily newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano. It now sells more than 100,000 copies every day, mainly as a result of internet promotion.
The paper is based on the principle that the media should be democracy’s watchdog. It gives a voice to those who want laws to be respected, first of all by the politicians that make them. It investigates and exposes the misdoings of MPs from across the political spectrum. It is closely associated with the growing opposition party Italia dei Valori, a party founded by the former judge Antonio di Pietro, who played a leading role in the trials of 1992 that exposed corruption throughout the political class and brought down the parties that had ruled Italy since the second world war, along with the Socialist Party of Bettino Craxi, the political protector of Berlusconi. It was after this that di Pietro, under relentless attack from Berlusconi and his allies, decided to abandon the judiciary and found the party.
Like Il Fatto, Italia dei Valori focuses with single minded determination on issues of democratic representation, corruption and the rule of law. While Berlusconi and his regime is the main target, the party and newspaper are often at odds also with the opposition, for instance regarding the direct government control over state television.
Although Marco Travaglio is one of Berlusconi’s strongest opponents, he is not a journalist of the left. He would resist political labeling but it is interesting that he comes from the Catholic right of Italian politics. This runs counter to the normal pattern of Italian politics. The public generally sees criticisms of prominent politicians as ideologically motivated. So if someone says that Berlusconi is unfit to rule Italy, it is because it’s a left-leaning – or possibly a communist – journalist, not because there are very good reasons why the PM is unfit for his job.
Travaglio was born in Turin in 1964 and began his journalistic career freelancing for local Catholic publications. In the late 1980s he worked for his mentor Indro Montanelli (1909 -2001), at one point a close ally of Berlusconi. (In 2005 Travaglio published a book with the title Montanelli and Berlusconi, a Great and a Small Man.) Montanelli had been one the most prominent anti-communist intellectuals for many decades. At the time that Travaglio began working with him, he was the director of Berlusconi’s daily Il Giornale. Travaglio got a job as a Turin correspondent for the paper.
When, in 1993, Berlusconi entered politics – some say to protect his own business interests –Montanelli strongly protested. This was, first, for the obvious reason that his friend had too much media power in his hands, but also because, as he used to say, ‘as much as Berlusconi is a great editor, he would be a disastrous PM – he’s a man who believes in his own lies’. Montanelli abandoned Il Giornale, the newspaper he founded 20 years before, and started a new, short-lived daily called La Voce. Travaglio also joined this venture, until it closed a year later.
Last year was one of Berlusconi’s most difficult in government. This year will be decisive for his political and economic survival. Not only has he failed to silence critics – though he has sought to gain maximum advantage from the attack on him in December – but he now faces a competitive threat to his TV monopoly. Ironically, the challenge comes from Sky TV. (Italian leftists give a hollow laugh at the fact that in their country, Murdoch is an ally.)
Berlusconi also faces trials for corruption that he is doing his best to sabotage. The case with potentially the most serious consequences is the one associated with the British lawyer David Mills, who has already been found guilty of being bribed by Berlusconi. Here he is stalling, so as to make use of the law passed by his own government requiring that financial charges are dealt with within seven years. Berlusconi has declared that he will also try to change the constitution to ensure that he remains beyond the reach of the law.
There is no doubt that Berlusconi retains great popularity among some sections of Italian society. But he also faces widespread opposition – which is strengthened by the facts so scrupulously and lucidly put together on the keyboard of Marco Travaglio and now disseminated through the daily newspaper Il Fatto.
Published by Redpepper
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