Rassegnata Stampa

have you seen Videocracy? yesterday i decided to spend a night for a movie in a cinema. i was a bit excited, it had been a long time i haven't been seeing a film. so i chose Videocracy. this week there are only two cinemas, in milan, screening it.

i left the newspaper very early yesterday, as it was saturday and at finance desk there wasn't much to do. so i walked to the city centre, for about 4 or 5 km. it was very nice, i felt i was repossessing the city. milan on saturday does not run so fast as during working days. and these are the last days of the fashion week, so you see models, foreign visitors and elegant people even more frequently catwalking on the street.

by the way, i was alone and after having a little pizza and a beer i left for the cinema. there i spent less than 2 hours waiting for the screening. i had a copy of il sole 24 ore, where i am having my internship, a copy of the economist, my new target for next summer, and a book. i felt a bit unlucky, i mean, in comparison with people who where there for saturday hanging out. also because i wore comfortable trousers, a loose (but odd) maroon trench, and terse mocassin. just a bit of mascara and black pencil on my eyes, my severe blue, rayban glasses, and a layer of cherry lipstick.

have you seen Videocracy, then? i did not find it so biased, leftist or "against Berlusconi". he is just mentioned for his empire (who can deny he created an empire? he personally sad during a press conference no one in italy can be compared to himself for his success). other figures are simply outputs of the system. lele mora, something between a talent scout and a pimp, and his creature fabrizio corona, a gossip photographer who also created a photo agency. they are just outputs of the tv-screened image led society we live in.

i felt more and more unlucky at the end of the film. a few percentage of italians realize we are really living an odd situation. they live feeding their minds only with tv, newspapers are lossing sold copies. more and more people look for news on the web, sometimes looking for a more free and full coverage information. news and media system are really biased in this country. and many are starting (or still continuing) to think that media are controlled by leftist lobbies. how can that be, if there is not a serious political alternative?

and the thing made me sadder was that we, italians, look like an anthropological phenomena. erik gandini, director, is (half) italian. videocracy is a swedish tv production, and co-producer is the bbc. and, more, it received money from the media eu programme.

i just do not want to feel like an insect under a microscope, i just would like not to feel unlucky if i spend a night like yesterday, seeing a documentary. documentaries in italy are an endangered species, as the only tv programme which make enquiries and documentaries, on the third channel of public tv, has lost the legal coverture. so now journalists (who work for that as free lance...) risk more and more.

Labels: giornalisti, live from italy, pro memoria

cercare un lavoro oggi è come fare una coda davanti ai supermercati sovietici: non sai se troverai ancora patate, o scarpe, o carne, o quello che c'è in vendita e che per questo ha generato una coda di gente che dice "se c'è fila, val la pena farla".dice che... dice che l'anno prossimo in italia la disoccupazione arriverà a superare il 10%. dice che... quelli che ci rimetteranno saranno soprattutto i ggggiovani tra i 15 e i 24 anni, e quelli che sono nel mercato del lavoro con contratti flessibili (cioè i precari). insomma, per chi ha investito nella formazione e vuole entrare nel mercato del lavoro mi par di caprie che c'è veramente ben poco da sperare.è che io andrei anche a fare la commessa alla GS (potevo farlo prima di iniziare l'università, ed è stata una cosa presa in seria considerazione), ma adesso per lavorare al supermercato i padroni fanno la lotteria: primo premio, un contratto (suppongo, di formazione).

Labels: divagazioni, live from italy

and please, take a look at this, the video containing the phone call (and the images screend) Silvio Berlusconi did this morning to "Mattino 5" (Morning 5), Canale 5's programme. Is that journalism instead?

By Steve Scherer
Sept. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said was compelled to sue newspapers which oppose him politically to defend freedom of the press.
Italian journalists and opposition parties are staging a protest “to defend freedom of information” in Rome on Sept. 19 after Berlusconi last week sued the country’s largest opposition-aligned newspapers for libel. Berlusconi said it was “a joke of this minority of communists and Catholic- communists” that Italian press freedom is under threat.
The opposition’s idea of press freedom “is the freedom to mystify, to insult, and to slander, and so I was forced to turn to the courts to defend the important principle of freedom of the press,” Berlusconi said today in an interview on Canale 5, one of the television channels he owns. “If there’s a danger” to freedom, he said, it’s from press “attacks on people’s private lives.”
Berlusconi, 72, is embroiled in a scandal involving a self- proclaimed call girl and is in the midst of his second divorce. He has been plagued by media coverage at home and abroad of his private life for the past three months. Berlusconi, while critical of the press, is the country’s single-largest media owner.
He owns Mediaset SpA, Italy’s largest private broadcaster, and influences the
state-owned RAI SpA network as premier. The prime minister’s brother, Paolo Berlusconi, owns a controlling stake in il Giornale newspaper and his wife Veronica Lario is the largest shareholder of il Foglio, a conservative editorial newspaper. Berlusconi’s Fininvest SpA holding company controls Arnoldo Mondadori Editore SpA, the country’s biggest magazine publisher.
Political Favor
Allegations of a sex scandal have been fueled by the claims of Patrizia D’Addario, who calls herself a prostitute. She said she spent the night with Berlusconi on Nov. 4 of last year, the evening of the U.S. election, and was promised a political favor in return. Berlusconi has denied paying for sex or holding “immoral” parties at his homes in Rome and Sardinia.
On July 22, after the scandal had been the subject of media coverage for more than a month, Berlusconi proclaimed: “I’m no saint.”

Labels: giornalisti, live from italy, politica, pro memoria

i wonder why the italian prime minister silvio berlusconi (i'd really love not to talk, write and think about him, but he is always on the crest of a wave) chose to start a legal action against el pais. he asked to block those pictures as 'body of evidence', so that in italy no media can't publish them. that's law, folks! if something is a body of evidence press can't spread it. but this is for italy. what if a foreign legal proceeding rule would be actual in italy? maybe the european court will be asked to analyse the issue and block or allow the proceeding against el pais.

on the formal and legal side of this story, it is true that mr. berlusconi's privacy has been violated. but there is a public interest to spread what it has been discovered by the photoreporter Antonello Zappuddu, especially because it has been proved that public flights have been used also by musicians and dancers hosted by the prime minister in his villa. and because he is the guide (political and in some ways moral) of italy.

after the announcement against el pais, mr. berlusconi decided to denounce the mildly left-sided la repubblica newspaper too because it published those famous pictures on its website and then on the newspaper. repubblica photo editors took screenshots of el pais photos, saving the 'el pais' headline. unfortunately, yesterday i could not see if the pictures published on the printed version of la repubblica had the el pais headline or not. as a colleague told me, they did not save el pais headline.

anyway, il corriere della sera made the same: on the online version of the milan-based (and most influential) newspaper website there where small screenshots of the seized (censored) photos. and the same did the il sole - 24 ore newspaper's website.

so, why mr. berlusconi announced that he will proceed against el pais and la repubblica but not against il corriere and il sole - 24 ore too, if they pasted the same screenshots? we will see if the proceedings will be validated or not. editor chiefs of both corriere della sera and il sole - 24 ore have been recently nominated and they (seem to) have assumed a not-so-strict position towards the prime minister. the newspapers they edit have always been balanced. but it sounds sad that they (till today) have a different treatment from the government.

on the other hand, on 5th june the italian prime minister spoke at the political programming on the public tv channel rai 3. unfortunatly i could watch that solo-match, but people who watched it told me (or wrote on their blog) about that. the chief editor asked the prime prime minister to compare the domestic voting rule to the one for european parliament elections, and then to show how to vote. as i was told, mr. berlusconi showed it on a specimen voting paper... crossing his party simbol.
at the end the 'journalist' said they have just a minute and a half more and when mr. berlusconi asked 'may i use it then?', she replied with simple, clear words: 'sure, you are the house master here'.

enrico mattei, the founder of italian public energy company, used to say: 'i use political parties as cabs'. it sounds terribly actual if you change 'political parties' with 'media' or 'journalists'.

Labels: live from italy

i'm getting confident with english. thanks to my obstinacy and to practice. i started improving the language analysing essays on indian spirituality when i was 16. i spent a whole summer reading, copying and translating texts about india in order to create a website. that's still online. it was hard, but i was young and determined. and full of streght.

then arrived my first interniship at agenzia italia's foreing affairs desk. it was hard too, but that was what i needed. foreign languages are unaffordable for italians. i mean, the only way you have to learn is going abroad, because english teachers have too less hours in public schools and can't make miracles. and if you can't afford a full immersion in the uk or somewhere else you are left alone.
now i think it is time to start writing in english on this blog. it will be a simple english, not the economist style. since when i started my blog i have been thinking about something like a correspondence from italy. i have always looked abroad, maybe because i'm half foreign and i grow up feeling like that, and feeling my mom's diversity. not just because of her, but because of others.

so, i must introduce 'rassegnata stampa'. it is a word game. 'rassegna stampa' means 'press review', while 'rassegnata' stands for 'resigned'. it is a kind of way to say 'i'm so addicted to journalism and i dream so much to become a journalist that i'm resigned to do this'. even though this could sound sad, that is reality. in italy you need to become a journalist, you just can't 'be' or 'work' as a journalist. you need a card that sounds like a 'driving licence' and you have to work and dream and... resign (a lot) in order to get it. it is like dante's trip in divina commedia.
so 'rassegnata stampa' would sound something like 'i'm resigned to press' :-)

Labels: live from italy

l'ho sentito ripetere tante volte, nella prima settimana all'aquila, da un alto dirigente regionale sulla sessantina: "ricordati che tu sei il futuro, io sono il passato". anche il più noto presidente statunitense barack obama, oggi, ha usato parole simili. i giovani possono quel che vogliono, in sostanza, perché sono il futuro.
ecco. poi guardi all'italia, e, non per essere esterofila (anche se il sangue non mente e avrei le mie ragioni per guardare all'estero), ti accorgi che tutti fanno di tutto per strizzare le mammelle ormai vuote della vacca. e quando riescono a metterle il giogo cercano di maltrattarla quanto più a lungo e sadicamente, perché fino a qualche momento prima ci si camminava a piedi nudi, nel letame bovino.
questa non vuole essere una tirata, ma la constatazione della realtà, un (forse ridicolo) bilancio della realtà di tanti "giovani". che poi dovrei chiamarmi fuori, perché a 27 anni per l'europa non sono più giovane, lo status scade al 26mo anno di età.
stasera, insomma, nessuna notizia, ma un po' di pessimismo cosmico. ti guardi intorno e ti rendi conto che tutti gli sforzi e i sacrifici che fai e fai fare a chi crede in te possono poco più di nulla. perché è vero che la vita è dura, ma un pizzico di meritocrazia farebbe vivere tutti meglio. perché un giovane che inizia a lavorare presto può pagare le pensioni degli anziani, ma gli anziani pensano a come incrementare i loro ricavi (per pagare costosi master che dovrebbero piazzare i loro figli...?).
siamo al punto che non ce ne frega granché, a noi giovani, di ambire alla pensione, di garantirci una "serena vecchiaia". perché se il lavoro non ce l'hai o ce l'hai oggi e domani chi lo sa, non vivi neanche il domani. faccio bilanci, alla fine di uno dei periodi più felici della mia vita, quello della scuola di giornalismo, e se guardo indietro vedo estati passate a fare stage e tutto il resto dell'anno a studiare (e magari a volte a lavorare) per lauree fuffa fatte per assegnare cattedre a impigriti ricercatori. e il rimorso di non aver gustato appieno la spensieratezza dei vent'anni. per cosa? per un percorso da intraprendere tra corporativisti e corporati, che come quel contadino che camminava con il letame tra le dita dei piedi, adesso si sente in diritto di strattonare la povera bestia e di mettere in atto il suo contrappasso.
domani, magari, torno sul pezzo. ieri c'era parecchio sulla green economy, in giro, e sugli interessi energetici della cina in paesi fratelli come il turkmenistan.

Labels: divagazioni, scuola di giornalismo

aspetto che chiuda wall street, e poi via, a casa. dopo circa 12 ore in redazione. è il secondo giorno di vita nel quotidiano, tra i tanti stage collezionati mi mancava quello nel giornale nel vero senso della parola. e parlare oggi con giacomo, giornalista spagnolo di origine italiana e alla ricerca di sorte (suerte!) a milano, mi ha fatto tornare la voglia, per l'ennesima voglia, di far pulsare nuovamente queste pagine.
notizie del giorno da rassegnata stampa? una, finalmente, sono riuscita a farla passare su finanza e mercati. una brevina sul primo fondo pan-asiatico costituito dall'asian development bank e dall'islamic development bank che rispetta i principi della sharia, la cosiddetta legge islamica. che sarebbe meglio chiamare codice. la sharia ha due dimensioni: quella metafisica, determinata dalla 'legge di dio' e in quanto tale sconosciuta agli uomini, e quella sostanziale, fatta dalla scienza giurisprudenziale e quindi dalla letteratura.

il fondo per le infrastrutture islamiche punta a raccogliere 500 milioni di dollari ed è destinato a finanziare opere in 12 Paesi asiatici (afghanistan, pakistan, indonesia, malaysia, ma anche azerbaigian, bangladesh, kazakhistan, kirghizistan, maldive, tagikistan, turkmenistan e uzbekistan). in particolare infrastrutture dove le condizioni di vita sono considerate inferiori alla media asiatica. "in indonesia - ha spiegato robert van zwieten, direttore della divisione mercati di capitali e finanziaria dell'asian development bank - solo il 39% dei residenti urbani hanno accesso agli acquedotti, solo il 9,5% delle strade in afghanistan sono asfaltate e solo il 42% della popolazione del bangladesh ha accesso all'elettricità".

è la prima volta che l'adb accende un fondo che rispetta i cosiddetti sukuk, cioè le obbligazioni senza addebiti o interessi. il fondo punta a raccogliere investitori, per così dire, di tutte le fedi: il potenziale dei fondi sovrani dei paesi del golfo persico ammontavano a circa 1.200 miliardi di dollari alla fine del 2008, ma investitori istituzionali interessati a impegnare liquidi, secondo adb, non mancano.

l'adb è quella che ha in parte finanziato la linea elettrica che dall'uzbekistan fornisce energia a kabul, dove da ieri, dopo due anni di razionamenti, non si rimane (a quanto pare) più al buio. linea costata 250 milioni di dollari. ora, sorge una domanda, spontanea: chi si è aggiudicato i lavori?

Labels: dall'estero, economia