Meloni wants all the media power in Italy

The construction of the cultural narrative was a political section despised for years by the right. A strategy, they believe in the control room of the device that governs Italy now, is completely wrong. And for this, there is unanimity, a concentration of related media is needed that allows the polarization between discourses to increase but, above all, to monopolize all possible space. Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni took note, first securing absolute control of public media through major changes to RAI. Never before has a Government had the almost unanimous support of the three main channels (Rai1, Rai2 and Rai3). Then, she guaranteed the loyalty of Mediaset, the media empire of the same family that for years financed the party with which it forms a government coalition: Berlusconi-Forza Italia. Company, also, where the father of her daughter, the journalist Andrea Giambruno, works. Now, most likely, it will take a step further with the acquisition by Antonio Angelucci, a like-minded businessman and League deputy, of the country's second news agency in a strange operation.

The fight for control of the media in Italy reached its peak with Silvio Bersluconi, owner of Mediaset, in power. However, even then, public broadcasters were divided between parties in what was known as the lottizzazione, a kind of historical distribution of the channels, born in times of the Christian Democracy and the Communist Party. The prime minister, particularly belligerent with the critical press, is now moving towards a concentration of related newspapers, television and radio stations that will probably culminate with the sale of the AGI agency in the coming days. The case particularly stings the ranks of the opposition in Parliament, because the agency is currently owned by ENI, the energy company controlled by the State with a 35% stake. That is to say, the Ministry of Economy is the majority shareholder of the company, which must decide the sale of a key piece of Italian information to a League deputy who has already more than demonstrated his closeness to Meloni in his media reports. . “The man of the year,” he headlined a few months ago, posting a photo of the leader of the ultra Brothers of Italy party, which occupied the entire front page of one of his newspapers.

The AGI agency was created in 1950 by the then president of ENI, Enrico Mattei. Currently, it is a plural, rigorous agency, based in different countries around the world, and with 73 journalists on staff. Its workers have been demonstrating in the streets for several weeks and have taken the case to Brussels. Massimo Maugeri, former AGI Brussels correspondent and head of the International section, recalls that “it is a historic news agency.” “We have always done the work without being on one side or the other. We are now seriously concerned for two reasons. The first is because it is our job and we fear that there will be layoffs. But the second, more serious, is that such an important agency, which has ensured great pluralism, is going to end up in the hands of an editorial group that is clearly right-wing and is owned by a deputy from the majority government. Angelucci would buy a historic newspaper to become part of a right-wing media pole. A free and plural light will go out. And it happens at a time when the Government has already done everything with RAI, Mediaset… We are not a newspaper, we are an agency that produces primary information. And that requires being plural by nature,” he points out.

The operation, which seriously worries the Presidency of the Republic, is understood through the figure of Angelucci, one of the main health businessmen and the richest deputy in the Lower House and who, through an assistant, has declined to speak to this newspaper. In addition, he already has three newspapers: Il Giornale, I release and Il Tempo. All three are devotees of the current prime minister. But Angelucci, and that is the most relevant thing, has been a parliamentarian in four terms. He did the first three with Forza Italia, when Silvio Berlusconi's formation was the strongest in the right-wing orbit. Then, in this last term, he joined the ranks of the League, when the formation of Il Cavaliere confirmed its decline and the artifact of Matteo Salvini, leader of the League and current vice president of the Government, began to grow. Now, although Angelucci is still a deputy for that party – he is one of those with the highest absenteeism in Chamber sessions – he is very close to Giorgia Meloni.

The opposition has been fighting this operation since January. Deputy Peppe Provenzano, former minister of Giuseppe Conte's second government, believes that “it would be a state scandal.” “It is an attack on freedom of information: an unprecedented media concentration is created, because it also involves a news agency. It is a totalitarian design. Plus, it's a gigantic conflict of interest, and not just for Angelucci. Also from the Minister of Economy, who is deputy secretary of the League and would be selling the company to a parliamentarian from his party. ENI is one of the largest companies in Italy, in addition to being owned by the State, and has no need to sell. If you do it, it will be to do a favor to this majority or this Government.”

The mediator in this operation, agency sources point out, has been Mario Sechi, Meloni's former spokesperson and former director of AGI. Today, Sechi is the director of I release, also owned by Angelucci. But the operation, the opposition considers, lacks transparency. Experts on the subject, such as former PD deputy Michele Anzaldi, who has dedicated much of his political career to analyzing and monitoring the media, consider that “there are strange things.” “The first thing is that Angelucci is a parliamentarian and AGI is controlled by a semi-public company. In fact, he is the Minister of Economy [Giancarlo Giorgetti] who decides on the sale, who is from the same party. But the strangest thing is that agencies do not operate in the free market. While all newspapers are in crisis because they have lost readers and advertising, the agencies have subsidies or are directly public. Buying an agency is a big business, and something like this must be done with great transparency. And even more so with an agency that is the second in Italy,” he points to the phone.

The interest that the right has in this operation is evident. But why is AGI important to this entrepreneur now? Some voices within the company indicate that the plans would involve creating a news service that would distribute complete articles for small newspapers without the capacity to write them. Especially in northern Italy, where he would like his healthcare companies to have a greater presence – now his companies are based in central Italy – and where, according to workers, he plans to move the agency's headquarters.

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