Journalists From Italy

"Giorgio Meletti, Nel paese dei Moratti. Sarroch-Italia: una storia ordinaria di capitalismo coloniale, Chiarelettere, 2010. ISBN 9788861901186"

"Letta learned from the Christian Democratic school that you cannot hold on to power for 50 years just by making compromises and taking steps backwards: there comes a time when you have to draw a line. In a word, take risks."

"When someone talks about freedom of the press, I laugh. I remember Eugenio Scalfari's heartfelt articles when De Benedetti ended up in prison. I remember memorable and comical pieces in Repubblica when De Benedetti presented his financial company. Not even the reports of the Duce's speeches were so enthusiastic. And la Stampa‘’ has to report on these days of crisis at Fiat. And Libero is running a series of investigations into the Roman health service without mentioning that its publisher, Angelucci, owns several clinics in Rome."

"Faced with this, should we remain silent or denounce the hypocrisy of that clearly false defender of press freedom, former communist masquerading as a sincere democrat, Ferruccio De Bortoli, editor of Corriere della Sera, who has already been punished by his readers, who are abandoning him in double-digit percentages?"

"The limit that was thought to be unbreakable was exceeded yesterday in a small village in northern France, where two Muslims entered a church during Mass and, praising Allah, slit the throats of the priest and a female worshipper after forcing them to kneel and reciting passages from the Koran. [...] Not even the Nazi SS, in their ferocious roundups of Jews and partisans, ever dared to cross the threshold of churches, which were among the safest refuges for their prey. Violating the house of God, cutting the throat of his minister on the altar is the fulfilment, for the first time in modern Europe, of a mad invitation by Muhammad, the bloodthirsty prophet, to all Muslims. [...] What we do not grant them, they take with bombs, machine guns, trucks and knives. They know that we are weak, that democracy prevents us from responding blow for blow with the same effectiveness. We are prisoners of our freedoms, which we have kindly granted them for free."

"[...] we know that doctors are divided into good and bad – just like politicians and journalists are divided into honest and dishonest – and that only these percentages determine how crowded the cemeteries are and how much truth there is."

"The end of Trump represents a turning point for populism and populists. A bit like what happened to communists after the fall of the Berlin Wall."

"(About the journalist Vladimir Solov'ëv) With someone who says that there is no propaganda in Russia and that it is not a repressive regime, if he denies these things, I wonder what we are doing here? [...] We are dealing with a buffoon who wants to make fun of Italians and insults our intelligence. I am offended by talking to someone who says that there is no propaganda in Russia."

"I find there is a lot of rhetoric about recommendations, I have been recommended in all the professional steps I have taken, in the sense that it is not that you wake up one morning and Corriere della Sera hires you by chance. There is always someone, while you are working, in that case I was at Il Messaggero and there were some colleagues who knew me and recommended me, they went to the editor of Corriere della Sera and recommended me as a good one. [...] Then we know that we are in Italy, and there are also other recommendations, but recommendation is one of the main drivers of access to the world of work. In the 1960s and 1970s there were parish priests who recommended a few young men to local entrepreneurs. [...] I have to say thank you to a lot of people, because they recommended me, so they triggered the recommendation and I in turn did the same."

"Here, newspapers are not shut down like they are in Russia. Here, journalists who refuse to agree to questions are not killed; we don't do things like that here."

"No propagandist of any regime has ever been accused or convicted of propaganda. If you are part of the regime, we would never dream of issuing a document certifying it. As for Nazi memorabilia, I understand your point, but you can find the same memorabilia in Milan, even in some far-right groups. But do you know what the difference is? We don't kill 30,000 women and children to isolate those groups. We send in the police and see what can be done in accordance with the rights, the law and the Constitution."

"But if Italy is fascist, why did it buy four villas in Italy?"

"Something tells me that the Sallusti&Santanchè duo will prove to be more active, imaginative and lively than the Feltri&Belpietro duo. In any case, it will be entertaining, given that Sallusti is to Pavolini what Feltri is to Badoglio."

"I introduced Sallusti to Berlusconi, who didn't even know who he was. We had a good relationship for nine years: I brought him to QN, I brought him to Il Giornale, on New Year's Eve he sent me a text message that ended with ‘I love you’. And now he's throwing this at me? It's fine that gratitude doesn't exist, but at least respect for people and the truth..."

"If you search for my name on Wikipedia, the first thing they write is that I had a fascist grandfather. Like a scarlet letter, like an irrevocable sentence. I don't know if my grandfather was really a fascist. He certainly wasn't a high-ranking official. He was an army officer. Like many others, after 8 September he sided with what turned out to be the wrong side of history. [...] Dario Fo was also part of the Social Republic. Giorgio Napolitano was a fascist before he was a communist. So was Eugenio Scalfari. So was Gaetano Azzariti, a collaborator of Togliatti, the first communist president of the Constitutional Court, who had been president of the Commission on Race..."

"(On his relationship with Vittorio Feltri) His relationship with me is terrible, mine with him is excellent. I thank fate for having played with Maradona: because Feltri in the 1990s and early 2000s was the Maradona of journalism. But a Maradona who is twenty kilos overweight cannot play. Age now confines him to the sidelines. And he hurls insults at those who are still on the pitch."

"Well, now that almost a year has passed, I can say it. When I took over as editor-in-chief of Libero on 12 August 2009, my legs were shaking."

"A few days ago, I mentioned a bad dream that had disturbed my sleep. It was a nightmare in which Berlusconi was forced to resign and a public health government replaced him, introducing electoral legislation that took us back twenty years. In the end, a large coalition comprising Fini, Casini, Bersani, Di Pietro and Vendola defeated Il Cavaliere, bringing his long reign to an end and plunging us back into the First Republic."

"History has taken it upon itself to disprove the narrow-minded and the liars with a long trail of blood."

"For me, a journalist is someone who seeks out news, not someone who has been handed a burgundy leather badge despite never having found a single news story in their life."

"(Referring to Silvio Berlusconi) If, in order to keep the left, the wheeler-dealers and the spendthrifts at bay, I have to pay the price of having a head of government who touches women's bottoms, I have no hesitation. Better an old pig than lots of young hypocrites like Fini."

"I had a vague sympathy for the socialists. I also wrote for l'Espresso."

"If we [il Giornale] are the newspaper of Forza Italia, la Repubblica is the newspaper of the DS."

"I got my biggest scoop when I found out that Antonio Baldassarre, former president of the Constitutional Court, was telling people that a general had told him that in order to stop the referendum on the Guardia di Finanza, he had gone to Scalfaro, who in turn had intervened with two members of the Constitutional Court. I got myself invited to a dinner, sat next to Baldassarre and listened to his story, which ended up in the newspaper the next day. Compared to that, the Watergate scandal was child's play."

"(To the daily newspaper Libero) I had already hired Guzzanti. Vittorio had been less effective in recent years, Romagnoli had disappeared a bit, I was trying to hire Battista, but he said no, he was afraid, perhaps he dreamed of more important things. Galli della Loggia I simply forgot about him."

"When I asked Luca Telese to come and work for us [Libro], Luca stammered: ‘But I'm left-wing.’ I replied: ‘Who better to report on the crisis of the left?’"

"(About Sandro Bondi) He courageously said that Forza Italia must not become a party of membership cards. That people should not think in terms of factions but in a big way, like Berlusconi. Bondi was publicly mocked by Scajola for that courageous interview."

"The owner of the Omega agency gave me a photomontage with Pivetti‘s face on the body of a topless ballerina in a tutu. Knowing Farina’s total devotion to her, I called him and said, ‘Tomorrow I'm putting this photo of Pivetti with her breasts exposed on the front page’. He turned pale and started sweating. ‘Well, bare breasts, no, slightly exposed’. And I said, ‘What are you talking about, her tits are out’. He was a wreck: ‘We can't publish this photo’. ‘Are you kidding? On the front page! I spent a lot of money.’ Increasingly pale and exhausted, Farina took the photo, pulled out his cheque book and said, ’How much? I'll buy it.’"

"I have voted for various parties. Never the PCI or anything like that. Never AN. Never DC. Sometimes socialist, PRI. Once Lega. Last time Forza Italia."

"Something tells me that the Sallusti&Santanchè duo will prove to be more active, imaginative and lively than the Feltri&Belpietro duo. In any case, it will be entertaining, given that Sallusti is to Pavolini what Feltri is to Badoglio."

"(About Giorgio Gaber) It was by acting in this [collective] dimension that he created a unique way of connecting with the public, breaking away from all the self-referential clichés that, as a hugely popular figure, he could easily have allowed himself. Because it is true that, on the one hand, Gaber made the radical choice to remain on the sidelines; but immediately afterwards, he suggested to anyone who wanted to listen to him that they should go to him. Ready to engage in discussion with him."

"We shattered that ‘we’ that Gaber was leading us towards. He wanted to take us into our individual selves, within each of which there is religion, spirituality, artistic sensibility, politics itself, to seek, together, a different ‘we’ that would truly liberate and involve all selves. Instead, we have arrived at frightening new ‘we’s, which isolate each other and are even capable of racism and violence. We have come to ask ourselves whether human freedom is a ‘political’ or ‘anti-political’ matter."

"On 27 May 1964, a nine-year-old boy with a poor appetite, already in his pyjamas, was given special permission to stay up and watch television. His mother tricked him: ‘Look, if you don't eat, even your heroes won't make it’. I still remember the monstrous size of the stuffed loaf of bread that was placed in my hands. I chewed tenaciously, my eyes fixed on the screen. I swallowed with difficulty but without stopping: the first good luck ritual, the more I ate, the better our team played! I only stopped to wave the Nerazzurri flag on the sofa after every goal. When captain Picchi lifted the cup to the sky in the middle of the Prater in Vienna and the white shirts of Real Madrid finally appeared defeated, my father was moved to tears: how could I sleep with all that adrenaline in my brain and all that bread in my stomach? So that little boy, who was usually sent to bed before Carosello, took his place in his pyjamas in the Fiat 1300, with the flag hanging out of the window. Everyone to Piazza Duomo! Long live Inter, who freed the night for children!"

"RAI argues and then doesn't reopen its talk shows. Thanks, you're brilliant: it's all publicity for La7, which broadcasts them."

"(Regarding Silvio Berlusconi) Hallelujah! The orchestra plays in front of the Quirinale and throughout Italy we celebrate Liberation Day. The future is uncertain, but we are leaving behind the shame of being represented in the world by a man like."

"Just as Borghezio has already been expelled from the parliamentary group he belonged to in Strasbourg following his offensive remarks against Kyenge, we expect the Lega senators to do the same with Calderoli. It will not be a great loss. It will also serve to re-establish in Italy the European practice of keeping racists on the margins of institutions, not least because the liberal and moderate right is the first to commit itself to not giving them any space."

"Hydrogen bomb explodes in North Korea, causing an earthquake. Too bad Salvini and Razzi weren't in their adopted homeland."

"He's very good, I'm glad they put him on TG1, he's a good presenter and an excellent journalist. But will he be a good director?"

"He has had a troubled political career, typical of his generation, but today he is very different from his early days."

"Capalbio is better than Portofino, more chic. With the money from Trochetti Provera, Gad Lerner can afford this and more, so he can host who knows how many black people in his house."

"(on the Plato's andrgyn myth reported in the Symposium) Early humans belonged to three genders: the male, the female and the androgynous, provided with both reproductive organs. But the men angered the gods, and Jupiter decided to punish them by slicing them in two. Since then the androgyne has been wandering in search of his opposite-sex half. And the same thing is done - much to the monsignor's chagrin - by the halved male and female, who find peace only in reuniting with the missing half that is identical to them. The divine energy that moves the dance of all these halves is called love and is the same for everyone, straight and homosexual. Thus, perversions are not daughters of Jupiter's axe, but of the obsessive thoughts of certain men, mostly male and mostly bigoted."

"The Italian nation rose, as did all the others in Europe, about the close of the Middle Ages; but its birth was different. Italy was not the creation of kings and warriors; she was the creature of a poet, Dante. The foreigners who identify Italy with Dante are essentially right. His character and work had a decisive influence which grew in the centuries, until they became paramount to the leading class of the Italian people. It is hardly an exaggeration to hold that he was to Italy what Moses may have been to Israel."

"The demand for justice, rising from the families of the victims of paedophile priests in America and beyond, must be answered. And the Church itself in the past has not done everything possible to punish and prevent, sometimes preferring to hush up and cut short. But if there is one Pope who has not hidden in silence and embarrassment, but has strongly denounced crimes and omertà, it is Pope Benedict XVI. His ‘Letter to the Catholics of Ireland' is the most courageous document the Vatican has produced on the subject in its history."

"The best of Italy are the young people who do not whine, get involved, go abroad, learn other languages, study, win scholarships, work. Fabrizia Di Lorenzo's path was interrupted by Islamist terrorism in Berlin; that of another girl of her generation, Valeria Solesin, was broken a year earlier at the Bataclan. But many other Italians will follow their example. Instead of denigrating them, the government would do well to create the conditions for those who wish to do so to return home."

"I know Naples well . I frequent it because I like it. It is a city with a very strong identity. On Saturday I was in the historic centre, I visited that marvel of the Veiled Christ for the umpteenth time. But I want to point out a danger: we must be careful not to turn that area of Naples into a showroom, a tourist salon. I do not like oleography, but identity is one thing and oleography another. The historic centre of Naples has its charm because the people are still there. Without the people, it becomes something else. Naples must not lose its soul, it is a danger that I see."

"We all have to face death sooner or later. And you are never prepared. I started reading the Bible at my father's bedside. Reading it, I did not regain my faith, but the more I think about it, the more hope comes to me. It is not only the sacred text of two religions, Christianity and Judaism, and a very important text for Islam as well. Especially in the part of Ezekiel, in the book of Wisdom, there are words of a beauty that send shivers down your spine. And, although it is true that the picture of man that comes out of the Bible is terrible, from fratricide to sexual violence, civil war, incest, there are also the roots of hope, of love, of resurrection."

"Talking about the Bible today is an act of resistance that is also incumbent on the laity. The most formidable of novels."

"(About Jeanne Calment) Born in 1875, she was already a wife at the time of the Dreyfus affair, a mother when General De Gaulle was in primary school, a grandmother before the 1929 crisis. She had evidently taken a liking to it, got into the part: she told of having been at Victor Hugo's funeral, of having known Van Gogh - 'dirty and sickly' -, of having danced with Joséphine Baker. She was given a solemn funeral. The President of the Republic, who was then Jacques Chirac, had sad words for the 'grandmother of the fatherland'."

"Peaceful living together between religions and cultures is possible if from the start we know how to identify the values in which we believe and if we recognise rules that apply to everyone. The real problem which we don't address, because Europe is suffering an identity crisis."

"I pray for him (Pope Francis) as a Catholic, but for a living I have to rely on evidence. Just reread the interviews he gives, it's an extremely painful, dramatic situation. Saying that God is not Catholic means wanting a super religion purified of dogmas and sacraments, it's a shame that the monotheistic horizon thus understood then impacts the Trinitarian belief. And it's a big problem. Islam maintains that God does not have a son."