Roberto Congiu’s Blog

Enzo Biagi, August 9, 1920 – November 6, 2007

November 11th, 2007

A couple of days ago Enzo Biagi passed away. He was one of the most respected, honest and admired italian journalists. Despite that, and despite is TV program was highly rated and had a great following, his criticism toward Berlusconi gained him (and others like Santoro and Luttazzi) ostracism as soon as Berlusconi became prime minister of Italy in 2001 for this interview to comedian and academy award winner Roberto Benigni. Biagi eventually came back to TV in 2007, being Berlusconi not in power anymore.

My heart is filled with sadness for many reasons. The biggest reason is the profound injustice of his ostracism. Italy was deprived for years of one of the most honest and objective voices. His style was uniquely calm, polite, full of humor and with a touch of melancholy. Today’s italian media world is sadly submissive to the power, since most TVs and newspapers are not really independent. The channels that are not owned by the government are owned by Berlusconi; most newspapers are directly or indirectly owned by the same few people. For this reason it’s very unlikely to see published a story against the ’strong powers’ in Italy. Biagi did his duty as a journalist and paid for it dearly.

One would think that this ostracism, or censorship, would be illegal. Unfortunately in Italy legality is a matter of opinion, especially since Berlusconi engaged a furious battle against the Judiciary, claiming that the felony he was accused of were the result of a conspiracy against him, despite all the evidence gathered by the prosecutors. He was able to escape prosecution by creating an ad-hoc law that granted immunity to the Prime Minister when he was in charge.

Unfortunately my hopes in Prodi’s left-wing goverment were laregely disappointed, since so far there hasn’t been any law to address Conflict of Interest (which Italy lacks - Berlusconi profited greatly from his term in charge), no law to change this hideous electoral, written by the Berlusconi goverment that reinstated the proportional system which gives the political parties the power to pick who to candidate.  But the worst thing of all was that the government interference in the Judiciary system actually intensified thanks to the crafty work of Justice Minister Clemente Mastella, who let out of jail tens of thousands of convicts with ‘indult’ , claiming that the jails were too crowded and leading to a substantial increase in crime rates in Italy; he also transferred a prosecutor (De Magistris) who was investigating  relationships between mafia and politicians in southern Italy.  If you speak  italian Travaglio’s take on Mastella is pretty interesting.

If you consider how sad and depressing the situation is in Italy, Biagi’s death is even more painful. Throughout many years, he’s always been a reference point in Italy’s chaotic news world, like a lighthouse you could always look at when the waters were rough.

Enzo, we’ll miss you.

Roberto

Entry Filed under: Uncategorized Rants