Regulate or limit the presence of journalists in Rai programs. It is the proposal put forward by Italia Viva in view of the electoral campaign for the European elections on 8 and 9 June which is causing discussion among the parties in the Supervisory Commission. It was prepared by Maria Elena Boschi, who is also vice-president of the bicameral body, through the presentation of some amendments to the regulation on equal conditions. The provision is being examined by parliamentarians, also for the purposes of harmonization with the resolution approved by Agcom for private broadcasters and today, in the hearing, the president of the Authority, Giacomo Lasorella, put the brakes on the hypothesis, underlining that assessments will be carried out on a “case by case” basis.
Doubts about its feasibility are also expressed by the president of the Supervisory Authority, Barbara Floridia. The objective of Italia Viva’s proposal is to “ensure the completeness and impartiality of information”, considering opinion makers who support “a thesis for the purposes of the political agenda” to be considered in the same way as politicians, in such a way as to guarantee a space similar to alternative points of view or, as a further hypothesis, prohibiting their presence in information programmes. “It seems clear to me that a commentator or journalist who participates in a debate in the context of equal conditions risks having a similar effect to that of a political exponent – underlined Boschi -. They often support the same ideas as the political forces and can influence public opinion and perhaps they do it even more than political representatives”.
The parliamentarian then cited in a post on Facebook as an example of a “politically aligned journalist” Marco Travaglio, director of Fatto Quotidiano, who today anticipated Iv’s proposal with great prominence. Lasorella explained that “the issue was present in all the electoral campaigns and the Authority tried to resolve it in the best way”. In fact, the regulation approved by Agcom establishes that the positions “of people clearly attributable to competing parties and lists” must be balanced, as well as those expressed by individuals “not directly participating in the electoral competition”. “We have tried to identify rules and criteria, but the evaluation can only be case by case. Not everything can be regimented into a framework of rules”, added Lasorella. In any case, the Agcom president underlined the importance of standardizing the regulations for public television and private broadcasters: “The failure to define homogeneous criteria – he stated – risks leading to differences in treatment and weakening the activity of the ‘Authority’. The deadline for submitting amendments, initially scheduled for today, has been moved to next Friday at 9.30am. Boschi’s proposal does not seem to find consensus among the other parties at the moment. “I find the proposal highly problematic – he explains to ANSA Floridia -. First of all there is an objective difficulty regarding the application of such a rule. But there is a much deeper problem, that of the freedom of the press” .
The 5 Star Movement, meanwhile, points the finger at the possibility of canceling the summer reruns of Report, as reported by press rumors. “It would be a truly incomprehensible decision – say the M5s parliamentarians in Surveillance -. Why eliminate from the schedules a product that offers excellent audience results at zero cost? The suspicion is that they want to once again weaken an inconvenient broadcast”. On the other hand, Forza Italia senator Maurizio Gasparri, who posted a photo on Twitter of himself in his office while he was signing a complaint against the journalist, moved against the host Sigfrido Ranucci. The broadcast had come under the parliamentarian’s sights due to investigations into his role as president of the Cyberealm company, a position he left last month.
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