Berlusconi gets a pretty easy ride from much of the European press. He plays up to his caricature of a self important, corrupt, socially inept philanderer with a cheeky grin.  He gets away with statements and behaviour that would get him chucked out of government in most of Europe and it’s considered a sign of the quirky nature of Italian politics. He’s not quite so entertaining if you live in Italy. It’s even worse if you have no choice but to have to watch Italian TV or happen to be a journalist in that vanishing portion of the Italian media which Berlusconi does not own or control.

L’Unità was launched by Antonio Gramsci in 1924 and he would weep if he could see what it has become. That’s neither here nor there. It is now the paper of the Partitio Democratico and Berlusconi is taking it to the courts claiming €2m plus €200,000 per head  from five journalists. They dared suggest that he was abusing his control of the media. For a publication with a daily circulation of 60 000 or so copies that is a clear attempt to either shut it down or intimidate it from saying anything Berlusconi disapproves of. He is also taking La Repubblica to court claiming damages of €1m. It had dared him to answer questions about his private life and since he thrusts himself into the public eye at any opportunity the paper was hardly overstepping the bounds of propriety. With a litigious first minister like that it’s hardly surprising that one survey of press freedom ranks Italy just above Bulgaria at a deeply unimpressive number 73 out of 195.

To compound matters he owns three TV channels and exercise significant control over editorial policy on the state channels. Just how much influence was displayed by Augusto Minzolini. He’s the chief editor of TG1, the main national news programme in RAI 1, approximately BBC1. There was a demonstration of 300 000 people  in Rome in support of freedom of the press. Minzoli chose not to deplore the necessity of a demonstration in favour of the right not to be told what to write by the country’s leader. He wrote an editorial defending Berlusconi. Poor old Silvio has been through a meat grinder reckons Minzoli. This is a lot worse than the sneery tone that British or American journalists use to show what side they are on. The man responsible for the main national news bulletin was polemicising against the demonstrators on the evening news programme and repeats his capo’s assertion that the Italian press in the freest in the world.

Reporters sans frontieres takes a slightly different view. It reckons that Italian journalists have the worst working conditions in the European Union, due to legal restrictions and issues of personal safety. This newsworthy nugget didn’t make the RAI news. The Economist was not wrong when it said “Not since Mussolini’s time has an Italian government’s interference with the media been more blatant or alarming. Journalists, and other Italians, have every reason to protest.”

On the subject of Mussolini, later in the week I’ll be looking at how Berlusconi has brought unrepentant neo-fascists into his government.