Premier and mogul, he attacks the press
Source: Agencies |
November 7, 2009, Saturday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
FOR a tycoon whose family owns newspapers, magazines and TV networks and is hailed as a great communicator, Silvio Berlusconi fights with the media a lot.
The Italian premier has attacked the domestic and international media for months, suing two left-leaning Italian newspapers for millions of euros and denouncing "scoundrels" in the press.
Berlusconi says he wants to protect his image and that of his country, but to critics he just wants to gag the media. A recent rally in Rome drew tens of thousands, some holding signs saying "Now Sue Me, Too!"
What makes the issue especially sensitive in Italy is Berlusconi's very concentration of media power.
Through a holding company, Berlusconi and his family own the country's largest private broadcaster, Mediaset; the largest publishing house, Mondadori, which prints news weeklies and gossip magazines; and his brother owns the conservative paper Il Giornale.
As head of government, Berlusconi indirectly controls state broadcaster RAI. Together, RAI and Mediaset account for about 90 of Italy's free channels.
"Italy is a media democracy. Consensus is built through the media, especially TV, glossy magazines and lowbrow newspapers, which belong to the person who runs this country," said Concita De Gregorio, the editor of L'Unita, one of the newspapers being sued by Berlusconi.
"There's a power to intimidate, blackmail, threaten that acts sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly," she said in an interview with APTN.
The battle with the press is only one of the fronts Berlusconi has been fighting: Already dogged by a sex scandal over his encounters with young women, the premier faces two trials in Milan after an immunity law was overturned last month. And his holding company was ordered to pay about US$1 billion to a rival in a decade-old civil case.
Berlusconi has dismissed the accusations of media interference as a "joke" and the rally as a "farce."
"They mean freedom of the press as the freedom to mystify, insult, slander, tell lies," Berlusconi said recently in a phone call to a Mediaset TV show.
According to media watch group Osservatorio Carlo Lombardi, nearly 90 percent of the Italian population watch TV at least three times a week, making it their primary source of information.
The Italian premier has attacked the domestic and international media for months, suing two left-leaning Italian newspapers for millions of euros and denouncing "scoundrels" in the press.
Berlusconi says he wants to protect his image and that of his country, but to critics he just wants to gag the media. A recent rally in Rome drew tens of thousands, some holding signs saying "Now Sue Me, Too!"
What makes the issue especially sensitive in Italy is Berlusconi's very concentration of media power.
Through a holding company, Berlusconi and his family own the country's largest private broadcaster, Mediaset; the largest publishing house, Mondadori, which prints news weeklies and gossip magazines; and his brother owns the conservative paper Il Giornale.
As head of government, Berlusconi indirectly controls state broadcaster RAI. Together, RAI and Mediaset account for about 90 of Italy's free channels.
"Italy is a media democracy. Consensus is built through the media, especially TV, glossy magazines and lowbrow newspapers, which belong to the person who runs this country," said Concita De Gregorio, the editor of L'Unita, one of the newspapers being sued by Berlusconi.
"There's a power to intimidate, blackmail, threaten that acts sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly," she said in an interview with APTN.
The battle with the press is only one of the fronts Berlusconi has been fighting: Already dogged by a sex scandal over his encounters with young women, the premier faces two trials in Milan after an immunity law was overturned last month. And his holding company was ordered to pay about US$1 billion to a rival in a decade-old civil case.
Berlusconi has dismissed the accusations of media interference as a "joke" and the rally as a "farce."
"They mean freedom of the press as the freedom to mystify, insult, slander, tell lies," Berlusconi said recently in a phone call to a Mediaset TV show.
According to media watch group Osservatorio Carlo Lombardi, nearly 90 percent of the Italian population watch TV at least three times a week, making it their primary source of information.
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