Hammer and Tongues

 
 

19 NOVEMBER PRESS RELEASE

This political radio station which has been broadcasting parliamentary debates for decades, has announced its decision to adopt copyleft licences for masses of material. It will soon be making an open source P2P client available for distribution and sharing of content.

Rome – Thirty years of history, parliamentary sittings, political conferences, trials, intelligence scandals, interviews, declarations, denunciations; the material collected with ant-like patience by Radio Radicale, the well-know political radio station in Rome, is now available on the website, www.radioradicale.it, active since 1998, thanks to Creative Commons.

“Creative Commons licences – says yesterday’s press release – are a really important tool to help Radio Radicale fulfil its mission – to effectively putting into practice the principal of publicising the crucial decisions in the democratic process, of promoting direct access to and knowledge of political events for the greatest number of people and contributing to the free circulation of ideas”.

The promoters of the Radio, which has adopted the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 licence, said that they are “aware that the free flow of information, in the age of Intenet and digital technology, means the freedom to copy, reproduce, distribute and use for the realisation of derivative works” and that this is why “we have taken the decision to put our video archive on line, to be followed, a bit at a time, by our audio archive” on copyleft principles.

The Radio also takes a firm stance on the needs for new rights legislation. “The creative potential of the digital world, and the collaborative and open nature of the Network – the note reads – make it necessary to regulate copyright in such a way as not to obstruct innovation and creativity, while at the same time guaranteeing some rights to authors”.

One of the most interesting aspects of Radio Radicale’s statement concerns the development of an open source software, called, for now, Radical Media Peer.

After Berlusconi’s “Bulgarian edict” (when he was the visiting Bulgarian Prime Minister, he accused two journalists, Michele Santoro and Enzo Biagi, and one comic, Daniele Luttazzi, of using public television for criminal purposes: since then, they haven’t worked in television anymore), there has been much discussion on satire, and what, according to the straight-laced politicians, a satirist may or may not talk about.  Many Italian politicians, for example, believe that comedians should not be allowed to do satire about contemporary events: they make a distinction between the “rights” of satire and the “rights” of providing information, the first one concerning the comedians, the second one only journalists.
The performance of Roberto Benigni during Celentano’s show was extraordinary, and  wiped out all the possibility of making this distinction. It was proof that a different kind of television is possible in Italy, one in which every opinon has space. A lot of politicians and journalists (Vespa, Feltri, La Russa), who are supporters and sympathizers of Berlusconi’s party, have expressed negative criticism about the show and Benigni and Celentano’s performance, confirming the opinion that satire is not supposed to talk about contemporary events (or about politicians) and that comedians must not think they can take the place of journalists.
Actually, in Italy it has frequently happened: I’m thinking of Beppe Grillo, who was banished from public television after he accused socialists of being thieves in 1993 (Mani Pulite proved that it was the truth), but now he has become one of the main information-providers for Italian people.
Through his blog and his shows he gives information about what is happening in Italy, contradictions, scandals, that have no space on TV, without losing his satiric vein.
The real problem is that there are not many journalists in Italy who try to do their jobs seriously: it means having the nerve to write all the truth even if it is bad and unpleasant, to be opposed to censorship. And it is grotesque to think that satire can be separated from the current events.

Translation of article by Gianni Minà (Il Manifesto 3/11/05)by Lisa Ferrari (course D151)

 Maureen’s first podcast.

Marco Travaglio talking about RaiNews24′s broadcast on the sue of white phosphorous in Falujah.

14 November: Michele Santoro presented the book and film 'La mafia è bianca' (The Mafia is white) at the Duse Theatre in Bologna, together with authors Stefano Maria Bianchi and Alberto Nerazzini, ex-reporters with Santoro's program Sciuscià (shunted into the sidings for political reasons by the RAI in 2002). Councillor responsabile for cultural affairs in Bologna, Angelo Guglielmi, opened the evening's events. The event was sponsored by the Bologna City Council, Coop Adriatica and Cineteca, in collaboration with Rcs Libri, Studio Uno, Ali Productions and the International exhibition of free cinema (entrance was free of charge).

'La mafia è bianca”, published by Bursenzafiltro, is the title of both the book and the film. It is is largely based on transcripts of interrogations by magistrates of the men charged with corruption and Mafia association, and large chunks of the books are dedicated to the transcipts of actual convervations intercepted through wire tapping and bugs, carried out during investigations to get to the bottom of the scandalous state of the public health service in Sicily.

Magistrates were particularly interested in uncovering unhealthy financial interests of Totò Cuffaro, president of the Sicilian Region and entrepreneur Michele Aiello, who joined the ranks of the pentiti to turn State's evidence. The case against Cuffaro was dropped in April 2005, as well as that against MP (Udc – Union of Democratic Christians (sic!!), Saverio Romano, lawyer Salvatore Priola and Michele Aiello himself. The decision of the judges was due to lack of sufficient evidence for corruption: investigators had also exceeded the legal time limit for investigation. All of the persons involved in this case have other indictments pending.

The Christian Science Monitor gives an interesting round-up of contrasting reports (US government denies – quel surprise – Independent confirms etc) on the use of chemical weapons against civilians in Iraq. But who is Sigfrido Ranucci, the Rainews24 reporter who made the film that is causing all the bother?

He has worked for the RAI since 1989. Until 1997 he worked for the third channel, Tg3, as a news and sports reporter. He has made several investigations into Mafia murders, one of which was the notorious final interview with Judge Paolo Borsellino, just before Borsellino and his 5 bodyguards were slaughtered by the Mafia. The same year, Ranucci won the first prize for International Satellite information (lnformazione Internazionale Satellitare) with an investigation on radioactive waste. He won the prize again in 2002 with an investigation into the harmful effects of impoverished uranium on civilians. The same year he reported on the impunity of Nazi war criminals which has been handed over to the Parliamentary Commission and forms the basis for their inquiry into the unpunished fascist massacres in Italy. In 2003 he received the European “Penne Pulite” prize (clean pens ndt)  for his investigative work on witnesses turning State's evidence. In 2004 he received a special mention in the Ilaria Alpi journalism competition with his report Veleni di Stato (State Poison) based on previously unpublished documents that incriminated traders of toxic waste between Italy and Somalia.

In Wednesday's conference in Bologna on TV journalism and censorship in Italy, journalist and writer Marco Travaglio has the following to say about the RAI's gagging of it's own story

See also: http://weblog.sinteur.com/?p=11245