A dispute has arisen in Italy on the EU’s rule of law reportaccording to which the independence of the Italian media and the safety of journalists have weakened.
Prime minister Giorgia Meloni has dismissed the accusations as fake news in his letter to the EU. He specifically claims left-leaning magazines as their source. Meloni claims that they have manipulated the EU into believing that the Italian government has curtailed press freedom, says the US magazine Politico.
There are also organizations that monitor freedom of the press have evaluated the narrowing of press freedom in Italy.
Lawsuits, accusations of censorship
The far-right government of Meloni has been accused among other things, about pressuring the media, censorship and efforts to occupy central positions of the public broadcasting company Rai with allies.
In May, Rai editors were on strike for a day as a protest to the government’s “oppressive control” in the company and the narrowing of press freedom.
In April, Rai canceled the writer by Antonio Scurati I invite his program. He had to read an essay about the rise of fascism. It criticized Melon for adhering to a neo-fascist ideological culture, says the Nieman Reports website.
Melon Background of the Italian Brothers party is an Italian social movement founded by a wartime leader Benito Mussolini to the ruins of the fascist movement.
Italy is one of the EU countries where a lot of defamation lawsuits are filed against journalists. Melon’s board members are said to be sensitive about this, says, among others, The Financial Times magazine.
According to the Mapping Media Freedom website incidents involving journalists have increased significantly during Meloni’s tenure as prime minister. There were a total of 193 lawsuits, censorship attempts and verbal attacks between October 2022 and June 2024, compared to 88 in the previous two-year period.
One of the verbal attacks was the case in which the editors of the Fanpage website infiltrated a meeting of the youth organization of the Italian Brothers party and exposed fascist, racist and anti-Semitic speeches.
Meloni criticized Fanpage and claimed that journalists have not used this kind of covert action against other parties. He asked the president to intervene. Later Meloni also condemned fascism in the youth organization.
Journalism researcher Matleena Ylkoski The University of Tampere is suspicious of Meloni’s claim that the assessment of press freedom problems in Italy could be “fed to the EU” by someone.
He has been compiling a report on Finnish media, which has been used as one source in the EU’s rule of law report. There are many other sources.
– I find it quite impossible that any single person or entity would be able to enter biased information there, Ylikoski tells by phone.
Italian colleagues have told Ylikoski that there is nothing dramatic about the criticism of the EU, but that there have been similar concerns in the past.
Italy is not alone
EU Commissioner for Justice Vera Jourová has been concerned about the state of press freedom in the Union for a long time. The EU has accepted in recent years several initiatives to secure the freedom of the press.
Jourová said the British newspaper In an interview with The Guardianthat there are worrying trends in power.
Journalists are attacked online and physically, and they have even been killed. In some countries, public media are pressured to become the mouthpiece of the state or party. Media pluralism is threatened by concentration.
According to the press freedom index of the international organization Reporters Without Borders, freedom of the press is increasingly under threat both in Europe and in other parts of the world. In the EU, the most worrying situation is in Eastern and Southern Europe.
Finnish chairman of the organization Kaius Niemi tells by phone that a familiar example is Hungary, but Albania, Serbia and Greece are also warning examples.
– It has been in Greece wiretapping scandalwhich is related to the National Intelligence Service. There was a reporter Giorgos Karaivazin of 2021 murderwhich has not been cleared, and so on.
– In Hungary, the ruling party Fidesz has been systematically attacking independent media for years. It is a model example of what the situation can lead to at its worst, Niemi states.
The Nordic countries are at the top of the world in press freedom. Finland is fifth in the index, while Italy, for example, is in 46th place.
Niemi sees political polarization and digitalization as the background for the erosion of press freedom. Big platform companies have taken away income from traditional media houses, which weakens their opportunities to invest in deeper journalism.
Polarization, on the other hand, causes a crisis of expertise.
– For example, we don’t want to trust scientific information the way we used to, opinions replace information, Niemi states.
Polarization also brings political strategies:
“Attacks against independent media may seem like isolated incidents, but if you look at them in a broader perspective, they can be part of a systematic playbook that, for example, tries to undermine trust in independent media,” he says.
Niemi points out that when the media’s task is to critically observe the world, it is more useful for many parties if they have direct channels to the public and criticism does not get in the way.
Authoritarianism and pluralism
Matleena Ylikoski sees that the background of the problems are the increasing authoritarian forces in many countries and, on the other hand, pluralism. The latter can be a neutral, good or worrisome thing, depending on perspective and values.
– If the diversity of life and views is not shown in the media, or if people see more and more content all the time that is against their own point of view and values, it can make them angry.
According to Ylikoski, especially the feeling that the media does not treat one’s own reference group or views fairly can increase the thinking that the media is the enemy.
There are also problems in Finland
– The situation in Finland is quite good compared to many other countries. For example, trust in the media is high, Niemi states.
He points out that mistrust of the media allows the transmission of non-fact-based information.
One threat in Finland is harassment of journalists. It can lead to self-censorship and undermine trust in journalism.
Ylikoski finds it worrying that even at the ministry level the legitimacy of the mainstream media is being questioned.
Niemi and Ylikoski want a broad discussion about the tasks of the media.
Ylikoski points out that politicians or other parties cannot define the task.
– If we discussed it more, we could better understand why there is so much opposition to journalism.