Every time a scandal explodes in Italy, the journalists tell us about every possible detail; the opinionists explain cause and effect, the directors write an editorial in which they express their most profound consternation. A scandal is such a frequent event that we don’t feel scandalised that much.

The readers and the TV viewers are informed for days on end until there’s nothing more to say in the emotive phase. Then a trumpet player sounds the silence and people talk of something else. Years later there’s the arrival of the “prescriptions”, the memorials removing blame from the interested parties; the amnesties; the bipartisan social blessings of a scandal that is no longer a scandal but that has become part of the history of the country. Mayors and local government politicians propose plaques and even statues for the people involved. There are conferences on the topic and the parties put forward the convicted people as their candidates in Parliament to save them from prison.

Every time that a scandal bursts out in Italy the first 10 pages of the daily newspapers talk about it in indignant tones. The journalists, finally free, rush around like the furies (birds of prey?) and descend on people whom they had interviewed with servility the previous day. The journalists of the post-dated news, the journalists of the institutional keeping-their-ass-safe, the semi-virgin journalists, of the appropriate editorial reserve, of the advertising stick and of the piece of regulation. I hope that the next scandal relates to them, their editors, their newspapers, their weeklies, and their TV channels. I hope that it will shed light on the political, economic, and personal motivation, about why they present one item of news and they eliminate another. They stay silent and they create false tracks. Journalists who always get the information first and then always write about it later.

The next scandal must be about the press, about the media, about their mixing up advertising and politics.

How many bought referees are to be found among the directors of the newspapers and the directors of the TV channels?
How much are they paid to keep us ignorant?
I’m fed up of post-dated information. I’m fed up of the post-dated pens-for-sale. The next scandal, for reasons of delicacy should be on the twentieth page among the regular news accounts.