Sources at the Italian state broadcaster, Rai, have accused Giorgia Meloni’s rightwing government of wanting to bend the organisation to its will and “cancel Italy’s antifascism footprints” after a series of high-profile departures.
In recent weeks Carlo Fuortes resigned as chief executive, citing pressure from the government, while Fabio Fazio, a left-leaning talkshow host, and his co-presenter, Luciana Littizzetto, a comedian known for her monologues targeting conservatives, left after failing to get their contracts for the popular Che Tempo Che Fa programme renewed. More departures are expected over the coming months.
“With every change of government, there’s a change in governance at Rai,” said a source at the broadcaster. “The only difference now is that it is more ruthless, whereas before it was perhaps a little bit more, shall we say, gentlemanly.”
Fuortes, who resigned a year before the end of his mandate, was swiftly replaced by the government-nominated Roberto Sergio, a Rai manager whose political stance “changes with the wind” according to who is in power, a source claimed.
The role of director general has gone to Giampaolo Rossi, a former Rai board member backed by Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, a party with neofascist roots. Rossi is known for his controversial tweets and support of Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump and Viktor Orbán. In 2019 he said in an interview with Primato Nazionale, a newspaper founded by a member of the extreme-right group CasaPound, that “antifascism is a caricature of the past”.
A source with knowledge of the situation said: “Rai has always been influenced by governments, but with the current one there has been a quantum leap. They want to take control of Rai and change the narrative to their way of thinking, and to cancel the antifascism footprints of our country. This will mean weakening Rai and the public service.”
The pressure on Fuortes began a few days before the general election last September when he came under fire from Brothers of Italy and the far-right League party after the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy criticised Italy’s rightwing parties on a Rai 3 talkshow.
The League called for Fuortes to be sacked, while Brothers of Italy filed a complaint with Italy’s communications watchdog. The parties won the election alongside Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and the coalition took power in October.
In his resignation letter to the economy ministry, Fuortes, who had been nominated by the government of the former prime minister Mario Draghi, said he refused to accept changes to Rai’s editorial line and programming. He added: “Since the beginning of 2023, there has been a political conflict concerning me and my position, which is weakening Rai and the public service.”
Meloni’s government faced particular criticism for having allegedly pressured Fuortes into departing before the end of his mandate.
“The behaviour towards Fuortes has been shameful,” said a former member of Rai’s parliamentary supervisory committee. “And Rossi’s appointment as director general seemed to already be a given – he’s considered a ‘strongman’ who will probably be CEO in a year.”
An inkling of the influence Meloni’s leadership might try to exert over Rai’s programming emerged in the run-up to the elections when the Brothers of Italy official Federico Mollicone urged the broadcaster not to air an episode of the globally popular children’s cartoon series Peppa Pig over the inclusion of a same-sex couple in its cast of characters.
“They’ll be working on getting their own people into network director positions,” said the former supervisory committee member. “So we’ll probably start to see more influence in programming further down the line. They’ll try to minimise leftwing narrative and influence popular programmes.”
Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister and leader of the League, was accused by the opposition of being “authoritarian” after celebrating the departure of Fazio and Littizzetto with a sarcastic “Belli ciao” tweet in reference to the Italian antifascist song.
Fazio, who had been with Rai for 40 years and over that time had interviewed Mikhail Gorbachev, Barack Obama and Emmanuel Macron, said the government felt legitimised by its general election victory “to behave like the owner of the public sphere with little regard for the public and with a boundless greed”. Salvini claimed it was Fazio’s choice to leave Rai and to sign a new contract with Discovery.
“Fazio was an asset to Rai and it was a mistake to lose him,” said Gianni Riotta, the director of the school of journalism at Rome’s Luiss University. “There has always been political influence, but there is a line that the government should be absolutely keen not to cross: Rai should not be homogenous; we need a public service that gives a range of opinions.”
