Thursday 3 October published the publisher of Republic he announced to the editorial committee that a new director had been appointed, to replace Maurizio Molinari: he is Mario Orfeo, currently director of TG3. In addition, John Elkann has resigned as president of GEDI, the publishing company: he will be replaced by Group CEO Maurizio Scanavino.
For some time now the editorial staff of Conradh na Gaeilge has been Republic he had a conflicting relationship with his publisher GEDI, owned by the Agnelli-Elkann family, director Molinari and the newspaper’s advertising agency. The situation took a turn for the worse last week: the editorial team went on strike for two full days, 25 and 26 September, to protest what it described as “serious interference with journalistic activity by the publisher, attributable to him and other private entities”.
Specifically, the protest related to an entry in the newspaper in which there were interviews promoting and celebrating the companies sponsoring an event organized by GEDI. The articles in question were not properly reported to the readers as sponsored and were almost imposed on the editorial staff by the fund owned by the company Exor (which in turn owns GEDI) which was organizing the event.
Orfeo is 58 years old and has long experience as a director of important newspapers and beyond. Between 2017 and 2018 he was general director of Rai, after the Morningmulti TG2multi Messenger and the TG1. In 2020, after being selected to the TG3he was the first to employ all three major television news programs in the public service. But Orpheus also has a long-term relationship with Republicafter being part of the newspaper’s editorial staff from 1990 to 2002: first he worked in the editorial office of Naples, his home city, and then covered Italian sports and politics, until he was appointed is its editor-in-chief.
In a statement issued by GEDI Elkann commented on the changes in the leadership of the group and on Republic therefore: «GEDI is today one of the main European figures of the digital transformation, with a clear scope of activity, focused on entertainment and quality journalism. Due to the organizational changes announced today it will be possible to focus more and more intensively in the management of the organization
Group”.
It was also announced that Molinari will continue to collaborate with him Republic as a columnist. The role of CEO of GEDI has been entrusted to Gabriele Comuzzo, former deputy general manager of the group.