Article by Federico Guerrieri, Picture by clairegren

European Alternatives has produced a dossier on the state of the media in Italy.
As we underline in that report, Italy is the only Western democracy where the prime minister exercises direct control over three television channels he owns and indirect control over three public channels, as well as owning several newspapers, magazines, radio stations, and the largest publishing house in the country. The Prime Minister has recently sued several European newspapers from Italy, France, and Spain.

Today we will try to understand how everything started.
Ambeyi Ligabo, the UN expert on press freedom sustains that “the public television network Rai has been strongly politicized since its creation in 1954. At the time and until the major political changes of the end of the 1980s, Italian public television was controlled by the political party in power, the Christian Democrats”.

The Masonic Lodge “Propaganda 2” was a secret Lodge which became very influent in Italy during the 70s. The P2 has been responsible for most of the Italian bombings of the 70s and can be considered a fundamental player in the Strategy of Tension. The P2 was ready to devalue the Constitution and to transform the Italian democracy into an authoritarian state, but still governed by the Christian Democrats and their allies, maintaining in so doing the Communist at the opposition.

One of the main goals of the Masonic Lodge P2, was the control of the media. In fact, its leader, Licio Gelli, understood that “the real power is in the hands of the mass media”. In particular the P2 proposed the dissolution of the Rai in favor of some private televisions, with the objective of controlling the public opinion.

The P2 has a project for Italy, called “Democratic Rebirth Plan”. One of the main points of the “Piano di Rinascita” (Democratic Rebirth Plan) was the creation of private televisions in order to destroy the Rai.
In the 1976 the Constitutional Court permitted with a sentence the liberalization of the transmissions for the local television and radio stations. After the sentence of the Constitutional Court, there was a proliferation of private channels. It was Silvio Berlusconi who launched the strongest competition against the Rai. Since the 80s the private televise sector was almost monopolized by Berlusconi. In the 1980 “Telemilano” change its name to “Canale 5” and became visible in all the country (in contrast with the sentence of the Constitutional Court). In the 1983 Berlusconi also acquired “Italia1” and “Rete 4”.
When in the 1984 the magistrates of Lazio, Piemonte and Abruzzo sentenced the stop to the transmissions of the Berlusconi’s channels, the Craxi government immediately fabricated a decree-law, which saved the Mediaset channels. Successively, with the so-called “Berlusconi decree” the status quo became law and Mediaset was now legally able to transmit in all the country.
The Rai was forced to accept the logic of the market and partially lost its function of public service. Spots and trash programs invaded the Italian television and the audience became the only real preoccupation of all the Channels Directors, while culture and education were completely forgotten.

In the meanwhile the Masonic Lodge had also acquired several newspapers.
The final relation of the Parliamentary Commission on the P2 that makes clear that “some operators (Genghini, Fabbri, and Berlusconi) received not justified financial aids”.
As reported by the Corriere della Sera, in the year 2000, the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi affirmed, “being a piduist is not a demerit”. In the 2008 Licio Gelli is returned on the Italian scene with a television program in a private channel. In an interview on La Repubblica, Gelli described Berlusconi as a “great man”. According to Gelli, Berlusconi “has taken the “Piano Democratico” (Democratic Rebirth Plan) and has almost completely copied it” (L’Indipendente).

Since he became President, and because of his control of the media, the face of Berlusconi has occupied over 30% of the time dedicated to the politicians by the Italian televisions channel .

In 2009 Freedom House considering the freedom of the media, has declassed Italy from the status of free country to that of partly free. Italy, together with Turkey, is the only Western European country to be classified as partly free. Italy has been relegated to this category, because the freedom of speech and press has been limited through laws, because of growing intimidations suffered by journalists from the organized crime and rightist extremist movements, and because of the concentration of the media in the hands of few owners.
Karin Karlekar, who has lead the research on Italy, underlining as “the main problem is represented by Silvio Berlusconi”, sustains that his return to the role of Prime Minister in 2008, has re-presented the problem of the concentration of the public and private media under the guide of one person. This is the main reason why Italy has been relegated to the status of “partly free”. Karlekar, in its research, has not relieved, at the moment, attacks from the government to the freedom of the media as happened in 2005 and 2006, but she thinks that Italy should urgently “resolve the problem of the concentration of the media in the hands of one person” underlining as “it is a unique case in the world”.