UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

REUTERS INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF JOURNALISM

REUTERS MEMORIAL LECTURE 2009

“Newspapers and Democracy in the Internet Era. The Italian Case”

By Carlo De Benedetti
Chairman Gruppo Editoriale L’Espresso

Oxford, 23rd November 2009 – St Anne’s College

If everything is changing around us in the world of information, does it also mean that
the relationship between citizen and democracy is changing in any way? This is the
fundamental question facing us in the years which have seen an unbelievable
multiplication of centres of information, a decline in printed news, the unstoppable
advance of the internet, and public opinion fragmented over the various websites,
influenced by blogs and grouped into the new social network communities. Everything
is changing, except one point which remains the same: information is a right of all
citizens, information is a function of democracy.

According to some scholars – and I cite Robert Dahl to represent all of them – to have a
good democracy, citizenship is not sufficient because it is more useful to have an
“illuminated citizenship”, made up of subjects who are informed and thus are aware, or
rather are aware precisely because they are informed. We are all equal as citizens, that
much is obvious and thank goodness this is the case. But only citizens who have the
information needed to understand certain phenomena can really give life to that delicate
element, indispensable for western democracies, which goes under the name of public
opinion. If citizens are not aware, we are not talking about public opinion but about
common sense, which is something completely different from the point of view of the
physiology of a democratic society, and also from the point of view of the relationship
between citizens and power.

In the last twenty years the growth in information has been explosive in terms of
quantity, and this is in itself a value, because it is accompanied by a greater ease of
access, a multiplication of sources, and a concrete realization of pluralism. But if the
quantity of information is important, the quality is also fundamental, indeed a particular
type of quality, which helps people to distinguish, understand and form a judgement: i.e.
organized information, which means information inserted in a broad scale of references
which not only give visibility to the protagonists but also to the interests which
influence them, relating these interests to the general interest, going back to precedents
and making projections about consequences, taking ultimate responsibility for a
comment. In short, giving the reader a summary of the general context in which the fact
or event takes place.

Reuters Memorial Lecture 2009 by Carlo De Benedetti

 Starting from a fact, which flashes naked and unembellished across internet screens –
unmatched in terms of speed and immediacy – or across TV screens or radio waves, a
newspaper organizes this fact, giving the reader an overview which aids understanding
and puts it into context. It thus creates an authentic information system that enables
citizen-readers to map out the issue and by reading about it form their own independent
and complete final judgement. This passage is the difference between knowing and
understanding, between looking and seeing, between being informed and being aware,
to the point of ultimately being able to take responsibility for a reasoned personal
opinion: which may of course not be the same as the opinion of the newspaper, because
the exchange between a newspaper and its readers is not merely a question of passing
on views - that is not its function.

The exchange is in the quality of the information given to the citizen to foster his
independent free understanding of the facts. A newspaper cannot and does not aim to
bind readers to its own opinion because it is not a political party: it is much less
although in reality it is much more than that – albeit with totally different functions –
because the relationship between the newspaper and its readers transforms the whole
into a live community where the one influences the other, in the name of what it
actually is that is bought and sold on the news-stands, which is to say an identity, a
system of ideas which organizes and prioritizes the news of the day, putting it in order.
In the name not of a political orientation, which fortunately ended with the century of
ideologies: but rather in the name of a way of viewing the world and one’s own country,
in the name of a window on life, of a system of values, of that which Piero Gobetti
called (in a way that means a lot to us at Repubblica) “a certain idea of Italy”.
Bearing in mind that in a democratic society it must be politics that sits at the head of
the table, because it is politics that must deal the cards and look after the pack, because
only politics can regulate the free-for-all of legitimate interests at play, reconciling it
with the general interest.

Thus we can understand what a scholar like Neil Postman meant when he said that
democracy is “print-related”: because the mind of the citizen-reader who is at the heart
of community issues in the western world is print-related. Indeed we could say that the
readers of newspapers are the ideal subjects of a democracy, citizens who are aware
because they are informed. Going one step further: the citizen reader is probably the
homo sapiens of this century, in which at a superficial level we are celebrating the end
of newspapers.

If this is the relationship between newspapers, citizens and democracy, if this triangle
can hold up against the crisis and the triumph of the internet, what sense is there in the
old question which gets asked of newspapers: “Who do you support?” It is high time we
abandoned this question and moved on to the real question for liberal democracies to
ask of a newspaper: “Who are you”? Because it is only if I really know the nature, the
soul and the culture of a newspaper, its editorial history, the transparent identity of its
ownership, only then can I understand what its “idea of the country and of the world” is.
Only then can I finally understand why the paper takes certain positions, and is for or
against these or those people. Not as part of an abstract ideological design but because
the way it is leads it to support a measure, to pass judgement on another one and to
conduct a political and cultural battle.

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 Because in this confusing phase of globalization, loss of identity, and crisis,
newspapers have discovered that they have an amazing role as cultural mediators
because they are so close to daily life, so flexible in adapting to facts as they follow
them, because of the almost technical connection that they can create between events
and ideas, for the intellectual energy that they can summon up, for their crucial
translation of scientific or academic language of the experts for consumption by the
general public. Mediation even in the literal sense of the term: because the internet in
the richness of its blogs and the ranking by number of clicks inevitably rewards
polarization and the most radical and extreme positions, while newspapers select,
summarize, prioritize, make choices – and in so doing introduce elements of rationality
and rationalization and take democratic responsibility. In Italy, where the political party
crisis means that all of the parties are new and have no cultural or historical background,
the newspapers have been processing events for readers, interweaving them with
opinion and values as a point of reference, reinterpreting the controversial everyday
issues of post-modernity in an ethical, cultural and political key.

One could say that by doing this in the tiny space they have at their disposal, the papers
work on the cultural foundations of a community, trying to give the reader, disorientated
by the lack of sound and permanent points of reference, those elements of experience
and intellectual cohesion which make it possible to view events in a way that is not
purely one-off and emotional. A particularly useful function at a time when, as Zygmunt
Bauman says, “nothing lasts long enough to be fully acquired”.

If all this is true we can understand why the conflict between newspapers and power
still exists even in the internet era, as their relationship remains perforce a difficult one.
Indeed if this is the democratic function of newspapers, apart from their obligation to
give the news, those in power (of whatever political view) are bound to find it a
nuisance, an inconvenient filter between what governments call the people and what the
papers consider as citizens, and the sphere of government. The Italian situation is even
more complex, even starting with structural data. For years now, the ratio of newspaper
copies sold to population has not exceeded 10%, which is a Mediterranean ratio,
nowhere near the 28.9 copies per one hundred inhabitants sold in Germany, the 30.3 in
Austria and the 41.2 in Sweden.

This phenomenon can be partly explained by the space that television occupies. Italy is
a country in which television devours a proportion of the whole advertising pie which is
unequalled in any other democracy. According to World Press Trend 2003 the share
held by television in the US is no higher than 36 per cent, in Germany it is just over 33
per cent, while in Italy in 2007 it reached 54 per cent, forcing the newspapers to raise
their prices in order to survive, and making it virtually impossible for the weaker sectors
of the population, the hardest hit by the economic crisis, to buy them. In the very special
media diet of the Italians – studied by Censis in 2004 - 9.1 per cent of the population
only watch television, 37.5 per cent never read a book and do not even know what the
internet is. This is what Censis defines as a condition of “television isolation”, an
isolation common to 46.6 per cent of the population who have exposure to a single
media instrument on which they depend for all items of information and opinions on
public affairs.

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 The other structural fact is that of control over this television system which has such
influence on public opinion. Italy is in fact the only democratic country in the world
where a single individual – who is also at the head of the largest political party, leader
of the parliamentary majority and head of the legitimate government – to all extents and
purposes dominates the national television universe, with control through ownership of
three private channels and political control of the publicly owned channels. This means
that his control is of what we could define as the modern agorà or meeting place where
public issues originate and take shape, an extremely delicate area where the market of
consent is formed and where public opinion, that essential subject of a western
democracy, is formed.

This imbalance, which is evident to any observer, has an effect particularly on the
underlying cultural background of television channels, now uniform in terms of
language with identical ways of viewing things, and on the television news. In this
environment the task of newspapers – with their range of opinions – is even more
significant. Even though in this same environment it is easy for a paper to become
“heretical” vis-à-vis the mainstream precisely because it operates outside the common
knowledge given by the television news. At this point is it better to kowtow to the
mainstream or to accept the branding of heresy? The question is purely rhetorical: but
the answer is awkward. Because isolation, like solitude, is not a condition of freedom.
Everybody knows the 10 questions that Repubblica, the main newspaper of the
publishing Group of which I am chairman, had since May been asking the Prime
Minister every day for five months to answer (at last getting an answer albeit in an
indirect and oblique form) regarding the scandals which in the summer attracted the
attention of newspapers the world over. These questions arose when the paper believed
that it had found clear contradictions in the Premier’s statements, or between his
statements and those of other people involved. Repubblica officially asked the head of
the Government for an interview, to ask him the ten questions and clear up the
contradictions. It agreed with the undersecretary on a term of four days to obtain an
answer. After four days and no answers, it went ahead and published the questions. It is
the view of this newspaper, a view that has been expressed on many occasions, that
where there are contradictions in power, there is a natural space where journalism must
carry out an investigation.

I don’t wish to speak here about issues concerning the Premier, I want to talk about the
relationship between the press and those in power that arises from these issues. The
Prime Minister has in fact attacked the papers that have dealt with his scandal,
especially during an official meeting of young entrepreneurs at Santa Margherita Ligure
where he asked companies not to advertise in papers which he defined as “doom and
gloom merchants”, explaining later that he was referring specifically to Repubblica.
This is the first time, as has been noted, that a western political leader has tried to put
economic pressure on a paper which has been criticizing him with a view to weakening
it, thus interfering with the free market. That same political leader then publicly invited
the business people to boycott Repubblica (“you must rebel against Repubblica”, were
his actual words), and described two journalists of the paper who asked him a question
as “criminals”. He also told the correspondent of the Spanish paper Pais in Italy that he
hoped his paper would go bankrupt, because he had asked him about the scandal. He
has also advised Italians not to read the papers, explaining that there is good information

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only on television, while that of the newspapers is bad information. Lastly, the Premier
has taken legal action against Repubblica’s ten questions, requesting damages of one
million euro: this is another first, never had it happened before - a Prime Minister taking
legal action against questions that he wants the judge to cancel and get rid of.
At this point the question of the truth and of accountability underpinning this issue,
which has been round the world, has also become a question of freedom. The Prime
Minister in attacking Repubblica is attacking the whole of the press of the western
world, accusing it of being part of a subversive plot to overturn his government, as if
there were some kind of information international. The question we have to ask
ourselves is whether it is still possible in Europe to carry out ongoing investigative
journalism on those in power or not. And under what conditions it is possible to do such
work.

I would like to quote an opinion expressed by the young writer Roberto Saviano:
“freedom of the press also means the freedom not to have your life destroyed, not to be
attacked on a personal level, not to live under constant threat, having against you not a
different opinion but a campaign that aims to totally discredit anyone who expresses it”.
Clearly, political leaders the world over have the right to defend themselves from those
who attack them and even from those who criticize them. In a democracy, these leaders
defend themselves using the exceptional arms of their political influence - backed up by
the popular consent that elected them – and their role in the media. Never before has it
happened in the western world that a Prime Minister has used television channels and
newspapers under his control or ownership to attack on a personal level – not at the
level of ideas or opinions, as Saviano notes - anyone who criticizes him or expresses
opinions that are out of line. In Italy this is what has been happening in the last few
months and the editor of the bishops’ newspaper knows something about it because
after he had criticized those in power an anonymous statement was published accusing
him in police-style language of homosexuality. He was forced to resign from his
position.

The question of freedom of the press, in a democracy in the heart of Europe in 2009,
must therefore be reformulated in these terms: can intimidation, attacks, court action
and insults condition the free exercise of journalistic criticism, or even merely the
investigation and enquiry work? Can they be allowed to interfere with the serenity of a
journalist’s work, with his or her freedom of expression? Is there anyone who, on
switching on their computer to write a critical article about those in power, first thinks
about themselves, their personal life, any possible weaknesses they may have, any fears
and then thinks it’s better to keep well away, avoid problems, better not to bother? Does
all this reflect or not on the right of the citizen to be freely informed, i.e. on his or her
right to know about things, meaning to be able to take part in the normal physiological
confrontation between press and those in power, in total freedom and independence on
both sides?

There is also another question: do these methods of avoidance and intimidation in a

democracy actually help those in power?
On November 5, after six months of attacks and allegations, the Italian Premier finally
had to answer the ten questions posed by Repubblica This decision shows that the
questions were legitimate, that it was journalistically correct to ask them, reiterate them

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and demand an answer. The delay with which the answer arrived was definitely
politically significant. Equally significant was the method chosen for the answers:
rejecting a direct confrontation with Repubblica or a dialogue with public opinion,
opting instead for a journalist friend and his book, published by the publishing house
owned directly by the head of the Government. A controlled and protected political
operation. Repubblica acknowledged the decision to respond and the embarrassed and
generic way in which the Premier responded: showing an awareness of the limit, which
is the true answer and it leaves the question of the truth intact and the journalistic
investigation of those in power still open.
As this matter shows, we have here a cultural and political question that is still
unresolved, a question that concerns all our democracies, which are tending more and
more towards leaderism and a direct relationship between the leader and the people.

In the modern populist culture, which is advancing in the West, the leader elected by
the people, precisely because of this special sacred “anointment”, considers him or
herself above all other powers, rejecting the idea of any balance of power, of any check
– whether by the press or by any other institution – because he or she does not recognize
their legitimacy. However when the constitutional order is that of classic western
parliamentary democracies, the conduct of leaders who follow populist culture often
leads to clashes, conflicts and abuses of power, which free journalism must of course
capture, highlight and denounce when it is convinced that it exists. In Italy in the last
few days the papers have a new case in front of them: the Prime Minister is designing a
law which, by reducing the time required for trials, will cancel two of his own trials
currently in progress in Milan, using a format which is a western anomaly that we could
define as follows: the executive using the legislative to stop the judicial.

Naturally the culture of the press as a free agent, not subordinate to anyone, representing
public opinion comes into conflict in all countries with those in power and even more so
with the culture of populist leadership, which is superordinate and above all control.
Indeed any criticism made by a newspaper in any country my be presented and
stigmatized as an act against the sovereignty of the people, against the vote which in
electing a leader admits no objection, against the union in one mystical body of the
Leader and his people, an entity in comparison with which the concept of citizen
becomes weaker day by day. This is cultural conditioning exerted against the press:
anyone who criticizes the leader is criticizing the popular vote, therefore criticizing a
power which is not only legitimate but is intangible, thus anyone who does so is
automatically a subverter. One step further and it is easy to accuse someone of being
unpatriotic. Because the leader and his people are united in a kind of sacred charismatic
rite which consecrates power in the interest, in the destiny even, of the nation, anyone
who criticises this union, weakens it or threatens it is acting against the interest of the
country, is doing something anti-national, unpatriotic. This is another of the threats – as
I have said, of a cultural nature in this case – to the freedom of the press, to its full
autonomy of action and its freedom to be critical. It is obvious that anyone who
criticizes the legitimate power – for something that they consider to be a mistake, an
error, an abuse – loves their country at least as much as those actually holding power:
they love their country through democracy, the constitution, respect for the institutions,
public rules of rights and obligations which are valid and must be valid for everyone,
those in government and citizens. Indeed, in the part of the world that we live in –

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Europe, land of democracy of rights and democracy of institutions – there is no other
way of loving one’s country. What is more, we all serve our country when we do our
duty freely and conscientiously, carrying out our role in life. And democracy includes
those many cases where in carrying out their functions freely, press and power come
into sharp contrast which often becomes conflict.

When this confrontation-clash is considered to be a part (albeit inconvenient, that is

obvious) of the physiology of the system, freedom benefits and the right of citizens to
learn and know is enhanced and grows. When this conflict is considered illegitimate or,
even worse, subversive and therefore criminal, the right of citizens to learn and know is
conditioned, impoverished and the quality of democracy pays the price.
Many citizens (this is the case of Repubblica and also of the Chicago Tribune) have
gone back to reading the papers regularly now that their papers are investigating those
in power on a daily basis: because they want to know about and understand what is
going on. So the reason for the survival of the printed paper lies at least partly in the
following factors – its independence of those in power, its rational exercise of criticism,
based on a consistent journalistic tradition, and on a certain idea of the country, as we
said before. In the flow and immediacy of information, in speed, in the massive capacity
of the internet to deliver undifferentiated news feed, the battle of the newspaper is lost,
against a competitor that has managed to change history (because on the web everything
happens at the same time) and geography (because on the web everything is
everywhere). Only newspapers are not just flows of news. Newspapers are immersed in
the flow and as they let it go by they keep those pieces of news which they can use to
build a cathedral each day, which has the task of resembling the day we have passed, the
phase in which we are living. In so doing, the newspaper does the opposite of what the
great internet river does, it selects, prioritizes, discards and chooses, keeping the items
of news that carry meaning, that can have significance. In this search for the sense of
things, newspapers re-read the day, broaden the scope of meaning of the news items that
readers have seen cross their computer or television screen, penetrate the interests that
they contain, trace a context in which they can exist in relation to other facts, and lastly
express an opinion. In combination with the internet, which amplifies brands and
multiplies their audience, the continuous cycle newspaper takes shape, with the news
feed running right through the day on the web, and in the morning becoming a
newspaper, handing readers the best of what they have seen running across their
screens, lifting it out of a horizontal dimension into a vertical plane, where concepts
meet, where facts lead to ideas, where information becomes knowledge, citizenship,
responsibility.

All of which is always useful in a democracy where it is necessary to understand

phenomena in order to take a real part in public discourse. But, as Bauman explains, it is
essential in this phase, when citizens no longer believe in the effectiveness of lasting
public actions and it is the moment of a modern “idolatry”: with “notoriety replacing
fame”, celebrity taking the place of esteem, politics transformed into events which
change citizens into an audience, into delegating spectators, who with the strength of
their numbers and their applause give charisma to their leaders, who have become idols.

Quite simply, newspapers are a counter-measure, an antidote, which can carry out a
highly modern function. Because citizen-readers, freely informed citizens can develop

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an independent critical capacity of their own: that “immunity to eloquence” that
Bertrand Russell talked about, i.e. the capacity to resist the magic of words and their
deceptiveness. The good old newspaper is against all false magic precisely because of
its dogged and selective sifting through of the facts for the meaning of things: what is
worth knowing, what deserves to be remembered, and what still has to be understood.

Public Relations Gruppo Editoriale L’Espresso

Stefano Mignanego
mobile +39 348 320 8281
s.mignanego@gruppoespresso.it
www.gruppoespresso.it

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