The analysis of the degree of independence of an editorial office from ownership, management, and advertising agencies should start from the Contratto Nazionale di Lavoro Giornalistico [National Journalistic Employment Contract] (published in 2009 and then updated in 2013 and 2016; see also the Collective Agreement for the Regulation of Employment Relationships of Journalistic Nature in the Periodicals of Information Distributed Locally, in National Non-Profit Newspapers, and in Mainly Local Online Newspapers, 2018–2020).
Regarding ownership, the National Contract states that the editor-in-chief’s powers “are determined by agreements to be stipulated between the publisher and the editor-in-chief” (FIEG & FNSI, 2014: art. 6). The publisher communicates these agreements “with particular reference to political guidance, organisation and development [of the publication]” to the editorial body, “together with the appointment of the editor-in-chief” (FIEG & FNSI, 2014: art. 6). Therefore, the role of the publisher formally ends with the nomination of the editor-in-chief and the approval of the editorial plan. As stated by the editor-in-chief of SkyTg24, “there is an editorial line that is mediated by the editor, which he/she interprets and translates for the editorial staff […]. There is no direct contact with the publisher” – a position confirmed for the RAI Tg1:“There is no direct conditioning of the publisher in editorial choices”. However, the indication of an editorial plan is not always transparent, as is the case of TgLa7: “Publisher and director do not have this approach, they have never submitted an editorial plan even if the contract provides for it. No one has ever put him on notice because he does his work well”.
The National Contract does not contain explicit references to the management of an editorial company and its relations with the editorial staff, hence diverse situations emerge. The ownership structure of the leading media selected for the 2021 MDM study is the following:
- the public radio and television service (Tg1) have company management by political appointment (RAI management boards);
- the management of commercial television depends on the ownership (RTI S.p.A. for Tg5; Cairo Communications for TgLa7; Sky Italia S.r.l. for SkyTg24), creating a situation of coexistence. Other large publishing groups like Cairo Communications for Corriere della Sera and Gedi for la Repubblica operate similarly;
- and the cases of Fanpage and of Il Fatto Quotidiano, published by Società Editoriale Il Fatto (SEIF, a joint-stock company without a controlling shareholder), are different.
Finally, the independence of a newspaper from the pressure of advertisers is formally guaranteed by the separation of functions between publishing companies and advertising agents. Respondents tend to exclude forms of conditioning “No interference, no boycott”, the journalist from TgLa7 explains. “Never successful cases of boycott intervention”, says the editor-in-chief of SkyTg24, who however admits the possibility of pressure: “Some company or some political subject complained. The only thing we did was to see if what we said or did was true and if there was accuracy in the work”. Nevertheless, journalists are not always completely free from interference, even if it happens more often at the corporate level than within the editorial staff. Newsroom members of Tg1 say: “Some time ago, I remember that a well-known pasta brand complained about one of our pieces. I do not remember if there were any repercussions. They complained to the company, not to journalists”. Prevention rather than cure is an approach that the editor-in-chief of Tg1 says applies to the whole Italian information sector: “Can those that receive important advertising from companies afford the luxury of attacking these companies head-on? It doesn’t mean not to give the news, but to renounce forms of aggression or speculation in advance”.
This is, however, not an attitude which can be applicable to all. In the case of Il Fatto Quotidiano newspaper: “We don’t have a lot of advertisements precisely because we touch a series of realities that then react by not considering us for ads”. The editor-in-chief talks about some cases of cancelled advertisements:
There have been cases of boycotts. We did an investigation on hazelnuts, it means touching Ferrero [the company that produced Nutella]. Another case is the one concerning ENI [national company for energy production] on corruption in Nigeria. They’ve taken away advertisement from us in some cases.
As for the representation of journalists, this is guaranteed by the establishment of the comitato di redazione [editorial board] (FIEG & FNSI, 2014: art. 34).
Recently, some important protests against the influence of management in editorial choices have emerged from editorial boards. An example is in the strike by the editorial staff of la Repubblica on 24 April 2020, who stopped the newspaper both at newsstands and on the web to protest the decision of the Gedi Group management board to replace the editor-in-chief Carlo Verdelli during the Covid-19 emergency, and on the very day that had been indicated as “date of the death of the director Verdelli” by an anonymous person who had threatened him in previous months.
