Berlusconi strikes again

I have focused heavily on Italy throughout my blog posts simply because I find the media in Italy so incredibly one-sided. Prime Minister Berlusconi manipulates his control of the media to suit his interests, often blocking out opposing views. By doing this, the italian public simply doesn’t get the chance to make an informed decision.

Berlusconi is now being investigated for allegedly pressing media watchdogs to block a talk show critical of his government, in the run-up to the  March 27-28 regional elections.  Read the full story or listen to the podcast here.

The ongoing saga of media partiality in Italy continues…

Impartiality cocktail

Impartiality smoothie

The more I read about impartiality, the more I realise that it’s much easier to recognise when it’s missing than when it’s present! In preparation for our presentation, I was trying to come up with a definition for impartiality and found it rather difficult. Impartiality is a cocktail of many things: accuracy, balance, fairness and open-mindedness to name a few. What it boils down to is presenting a wide spectrum of views, giving the audience the opportunity to weigh everything up and make up their own minds. That is essentially what is missing in Italy – a breadth of views. Only one official view is allowed to be broadcast. It is the absence of other views that makes Italian media so blatantly partial.

If you’re interested in learning more about ways Prime Minister Berlusconi has been stamping out other views in Italy, click here.

The Italian Job

Berlusconi on election day

Impartiality is one of the cornerstones of good journalism. So what happens when the entire broadcast media is either directly or indirectly controlled by the government? Is there any room for impartiality or is the news destined to be clouded with hidden agendas?

Let’s take a look at Italy. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi owns Mediaset, which runs the country’s three leading private television stations. RAI, the public station is also under his control. Not satisfied with broadcast media, Berlusconi is also a major shareholder of Italy’s biggest publisher, Mondadori and Italy’s biggest advertising company Publitalia.

During his election campaign in 2006, Berlusconi was omnipresent. Not a single day passed without the prime minister appearing on television, radio or in the papers, in both public and private media. According to Italian newspapers, he had more than 180 minutes of television time over a period of two weeks, while his opponent appeared for only eight minutes.

Impartiality is essentially about reporting both sides of a story without bias or favoritism. 180 minutes vs 8 minutes? I’m not too sure where the concept of impartiality fits into that equation.

For a bit more background information, check out the video report  produced by PBS’s Wide Angle.