Is Berlusconi thwarting free press?

At the conference I attended in Rome last month I encountered a remarkable political correspondent. In the margins of the meeting she unfolded the true scale of what independent journalism suffers in Italy. The decisions of the constitutional court in Italy that Berlusconi’s self-serving law grants him immunity from prosecution, is unconstitutional, throws into sharp relief the reality that in the very heart of the cradle of European democracy – Rome – lurks a true enemy of press freedom and worse.

My friend works for an old and extremely established medium which under edict from Berlusconi himself prohibits any political correspondent covering either his doings, pronouncements or his announcements unless they are individually approved by Berlusconi himself. Effectively the only journalists who report Berlusconi in more than 50 per of the television and print outlets in Italy that he owns, are fully paid-up members of his political coterie.

For nearly a decade and a half my friend has been restricted as a political correspondent to only covering opposition politicians and politics. This explains why the “escort scandal” was all but unreported on the state television RAI and in the stable of newspapers and magazines that Berlusconi controls. Many opposition politicians have remained strangely inactive and silent about this. My informant tells me they live in fear of libel prosecutions. Berlusconi has at least three live (libel prosecutions) in the courts as I speak.

Berlusconi is the very same Berlusconi that Tony Blair chose to holiday with whilst serving British prime minister. My informant says that there are a number of European leaders who have been complicit in the continual international silence about Berlusconi’s excesses.

The combination of his position as prime minister, richest man in Italy, and owner of his multi-tentacled media empire renders him a dangerous blot on Europe’s democratic landscape. It may be that other European leaders regard this as a merely domestic issue about which they have no right to comment. But the outside world’s convenient blind eye over the issue runs the danger of accepting the Italian leader’s activities and approving of them.

Despite the court’s ruling I am concerned for my friend’s welfare and dare not name her although I believe she has the courage to be indentified. The Italian space is something we should watch with anxiety in the coming weeks and months. There is an excellent piece in the October issue of Standpoint which goes into more of his activities.