Italy, no more political talk show in public television

censorshipItaly Only a month and in Italy there will be the regional elections. Tv news are talking, in these days, about the two rejected lists, one in Lombardia and one in Lazio, that are going to make many new problems for the PDL (Berlusconi's party). While all this is happening, the RAI board of directors approved the proposal of general director Masi. So, until the end of the vote (April) there won't be, anymore, the tv shows Porta a Porta, Annozero, L'ultima Parola and Ballarò.

Against the Mauro Masi proposal there were only the councillors of the opposition and President Paolo Garimberti who clearly said he did not support the proposal. Especially because he had "serious doubts about the constitutionality of certain parts of the regulation, as is also clearly acknowledged by a former president of the Constitutional Court and as feared by the President of AGCOM". Without considering the possibility of "a real risk of monetary damage" for RAI, as stated Garimberti, especially if the Court will consider the appeals of private broadcasters.
The tv shows, said the statement of Rai, will be retrieved as soon as possible. But the question is what needs to recover in June a political tv show when, now, there would be plenty to discuss: the economic crisis, the politicians under investigation, the premier trial.
The Usigrai, the union of journalists of the public broadcaster, is screaming "We are at the gag," and it's thinking of organizing a public demonstration of protest, given that the "essential public services law forbids us to strike".
Senator Sergio Zavoli, President of the Parliamentary Commission for general direction and supervision of broadcasting services, claims to have nostalgia for the time spent trying to save the political tv show and suggests that "if all the company had dedicated the same energies as we did to find a reasonable compromise, until the last still possible, today we should not complain about such a drastic and simplistic result."
The hope for the president Zavoli is that the tv news will be scrupulously careful to the criteria of pluralism, because they will be the only information spaces. Giorgio Van Straten, Board Member of Pd, thinks the same and he stated: "well, we will have only the news but, given the behavior of the current direction of TG1, this can not reassure anyone. "
The journalists involved are all agree that the decision is a blow to the company, to subscribers and to the system, considering also that this choice could be a dangerous precedent.

"This is censorship," says Sandro Ruotolo of Annozero. Or maybe not. This is just what the Berlusconi's party has tried to do from the start: gagging the inconvenient information, the one that tells the truth, the one that tries to make viewers think. So now for a month you can admire the performances of a prince singing, the undressed competitors of the reality "Celebrity Survivors", the aspiring stars of "Friends" and all programs of gossip in the afternoon. The best way to hide the real problems and fall at the same level of democracy in Zimbabwe, as noted the president of Federconsumatori, Rosario Trefiletti. With all due respect to Zimbabwe.