• The Italian society has been m entally levelled by the m edia, and prepared to accept the next political new thing. • Unfortunately, the foreign correspondents (w ith rare exceptions) base their coverage on w hat they find in the Italian press. They relate the show and seem not to understand w hat is going on. They focus on the Berlusconi/antiBerlusconi braw l, w hich is sim ply one of the best num bers of the show, useful to distract the attention from the real actors, transversal to this apparent divide.
The unknow n Journalist is right: don’t take Italy for a never ending operetta. It is a serious plot being played out betw een Bolzano in the north and Palerm o in the south. The price is not only freedom of the m edia, m edia pluralism and content diversity. At stake is Italian dem ocracy as such. With so m uch being at stake, one w ould have thought Italian journalists w ould take the opportunity of this survey to voice their deep concerns. This has not happened. Possibly because of language problems, more likely, how ever, because of a very selfcentred culture, only a few Italian journalists responded to this survey. During a series of personally conducted interview s journalists, how ever, m entioned their hesitation to answ er in any other w ay but face to face because of their suspicion that their conversations as w ell as their internet communications might be intercepted by either their em ployer or State institutions. The refusal of the absolute m ajority of journalists m et to fill in any questionnaire m ade quantified results im possible. Since the centre-right coalition of m edia tycoon turned politician Mr. Silvio Berlusconi w on the general elections in May 2001, dom estic Italian and international debate has focused m ainly on the conflict of interests Mr. Berlusconi has not been able to and/or not been w illing to solve. As Entrepreneur he holds Italy’s three m ain private TV channels in his personal C O UNTRY REPO RTS – ITALY
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