Beppe Grillo and the newspapers
(3:41)

In Italy, the Politkovskaya and the tens of assassinated Russian journalists would still be alive today. The Italian School of Journalism makes no allowance for the death of any bearer of the truth, except on very rare occasions, such as in the case of Mauro de Mauro or Ilaria Alpi. Exceptions that confirm the rule of the subservient journalist. Subservient by vocation and, above all, by salary. In 2009, some 33 journalists were killed worldwide while another 171 landed up in jail, together with 91 bloggers. Our own, homegrown journalism, paid for by the State with public money does not have to run these kinds of risks. It is like the Politkovskaya had been paid by Putin to write articles for Pravda. The data relating to press funding for the year 2007 and paid out in 2008 explain more clearly than any other indicator precisely why, according to Reporters Sans Frontières, Italy is in 49th place as regards freedom of information in 2009 (down from 35th place in 2007).
Here are ssome figures: Libero (which has become the non-profit organisation with the most funding) 7,794,367 Euro, Il Riformista 2,530,638, Il Foglio 3,745,345, La Padania (servant of Rome, created by God) 4,028,363, L'Unità 6,377,209, Europa (Big Ruttelli’s mouthpiece) 3,599,203, Il Secolo d'Italia 2,959,948, Il Campanile (Big Mastello’s mouthpiece) 1,150,919, Avvenire 6,174,758 (but aren’t the 8/1000 donations enough for them?), Il Denaro (our money?) 2,459,799 and L'Avanti (the socialists are always in there somewhere) 2,530,638. Then there are also the folkloristic hand-outs that come out of our tax Euros, such as Il Granchio 88,444 Euro, Motocross 506,660, Chitarre 273,126, Car Audio and FM 290.400, Italia Ornitologica 40,000 and the mysterious Adista 117,000 (*).
There is no money available for Education, for the Police Force, for anti-seismic houses or for paying subsidies to unemployed fathers and their families, but there is always plenty of money available for the Regime’s journalists. The Department of information and publishing is headed up by Paolo Bonaiuti of the PDL. Without the media smokescreen and the taximeter, the Pdl-pdwithoutanel regime wouldn’t last a day, but without the State assistance, many of the newspapers would have already gone bankrupt. The salaries paid to Belpietro, Ferrara, Polito and Boriani are decided by the psychodwarf and are paid for by us. The editors are simply the politicians’ waiters while the journalists draft a menu to order. The public funding to the newspapers and the tax concessions that many of the large publishing houses enjoy must be withdrawn. If the reader buys, then the journalist survives, otherwise he must find some other job.

(*) Il Fatto Quotidiano, which has stated that it does not want any public funding, is bucking the trend. Travaglio, Lillo or Gomez would never have been able to become editors or chief editors of the Corriere della Sera or the Repubblica. They were obliged to establish their own newspaper in order to be able to have their say.