One way to interpret the level of job security in Italy is looking at the data that the Order of Journalists provides about its members, the most important included categories being professionisti, praticanti,and pubblicisti [professionals, practitioners, and publicists]. The first category is usually composed of journalists with permanent jobs within their newsrooms. They have legal protection, a good level of job security, and may maintain secrecy about what they do in terms of investigation. The latest data list about 28,000 professionals. Praticanti are journalists who are working within newsrooms to become professionals with the expectation of acquiring the same privilegesenjoyed by the former. The third group is characterised by the absence of legal provision as well as short term labour contracts and inadequate payment. There are 75,000 pubblicisti today compared with around 47,749 in 2000 and 1,373 in 1975. This is a clear sign of the increasing insecurity in the profession. Moreover, another divide can be found between journalists who work in the northern part of Italy and those who work in the south, as they face more uncertainty and work in a more insecure environment.
A survey conducted by the Observatory on Journalism of Agcom (Agcom, 2017) revealed that journalists were found to be employed (permanent positions and fixed terms collaborations) in 49.5 per cent of cases. There were 24.2 per cent self-employed (freelance), 11.6 per cent para-subordinate workers (so-called co.co.co.), and 5.7 per cent unemployed or unemployed and job seekers.
From the point of view of contractual forms and their actual use by information companies, the president of FNSI paints a picture of grey areas. There are no guarantees for a contract that will last for a professional’s entire career. Entry into the professional world often leads to a widespread and dangerous sense of frustration.
Many of the boys and girls I see don’t even know when they’re coming in, and that puts them in a situation of exasperation […]. You have to keep in mind that there is what used to be called a “reserve army” made up of people that suffer and may even be available for any adventure if you’re able to talk to them.
In this dramatic situation, the above-mentioned divide between north and south persists, so that,
in recent years a series of labour policies have been made that have increased flexibility, that have turned it into precariousness for life, that in some cases have created what I call the “information riders”, that is, girls and boys who work in particular in the areas most at risk, in Campania, in Sicily, in Calabria; they work for unscrupulous publishers, paid one euro per piece.
Representatives of the Equality Committees of FNSI and the Order of Journalists highlight the fact that a gender divide is also to be considered in relation to professional job security, as a high proportion of the precarious conditions involve women professionals. This has implications and serious consequences not only for women professionals’ job insecurity, but also on their possibility to act to obtain more equal conditions in terms of salary, or to receive support when they are exposed to situations of harassment and abuse. No efforts by media outlets are reported as addressing these intersecting dynamics.
