Italian journalist Marco Travaglio is in the firing line after this weekend’s program “Che tempo che fa” hosted by Fabio Fazio. Travaglio illustrated how the political climate of the moment dictates what so-called journalists should or shouldn’t be writing.
“It’s obvious”, he says “that if the political climate is conducive to a non-conflictual relationship between the opposition and the new government majority - Schifano has had friendships with members of the mafia - I don’t write that Schifani has had friendships with members of the mafia because neither the right-wing nor the left-wing want me to – and what have I got to do with right and left? They can take any political stance they want to but I have to do my job as a journalist - I have to write about it. Lirio Abbate has written about this in his book with Gomez and he is rightly lauded as a heroic journalist who is threatened by the Mafia. So they should either have the courage to say that Lirio Abbate is a villain and a liar or they must have the courage to take note of what he says about the second most important institutional role and ask this person to explain his relationship with those gentlemen who have been sentenced for Mafia crimes”
Although Travaglio didn’t actually say during the programme was that Schifani, president of the Italian Senate, has friends among the Mafia, but merely quoted from Abbate and Gomez’s book ”I complici” (The accomplices), now both right and left are thirsting for his blood.
Perhaps what annoyed politician’s most was Travaglio’s comment about the kind of leader of the Senate which can be expected after Schifani – perhaps an earthworm or a form of mould, a comparison which Travaglio managed to rectify in time. Likening Schifani to an earthworm or mould would be an insult to lower organisms. Mould can at least be used to produce penicillin.