In Italy It is Up to Comedians to Say Serious Things.

Just imagine if an inner circle advisor of a presidential candidate like Barack Obama or President Bush had close ties with the mafia in America and that relationship helped to win key states in the election for the President. Then after getting into power, the President made that person with the close links to the mafia the head of the Department of Defense, who also ran the Justice Department from behind the scenes, influencing judicial legislation that would help the President avoid criminal prosecution he was facing. In America that would sure have generated interest from the media and numerous programs would undoubtedly be dedicated to examining the links. In Italy however, when that occurred with one of Silvio Berlusconi’s inner circle advisors, Marcello Dell’Utri, not a single television station or news program in Italy examined the mafia allegations Silvio Berlusconi had with the Cosa Nostra mafia in Sicily. However, when an Italian comedian and talk show host, Daniele Luttazzi discussed the taboo subject on his comedy talk show, just like Sabina Guzzanti, he was forced off the air and his show was cancelled. The failure of the Italian media to report on the link between Berlusconi and his suspected ties to Cosa Nostra is one of the greatest examples of the danger of allowing a political leader to also be a media owner.

While the topic of discussing Berlusconi’s links to the mafia in Sicily may be a taboo subject in the Italian media, the public court hearings of his friend and business partner Marcello Dell’Utri were well documented. However, with nearly all of Italy’s 60 million people watching TV and an estimated 80 to 85 percent of the population getting their information from television, the facts from the trial were never fully reported on in the media. This failure of the media in Italy to report on the questionable business and political connections Silvio Berlusconi has to the mafia is no accident. Silvio Berlusconi has long recognized the power of television when he once said to Marcello Dell’Utri, “Don’t you understand? If something is not on television, it doesn’t exist.”

So when Daniele Luttazzi interviewed Marco Travaglio on his program Satyricon, a raunchy late night comedy show, Luttazzi was seen as stepping over the lines from comedy to journalism. While the interview with Marco Travaglio, a frequent contributor to Beppe Grillo’s blog, was not well balanced and did not put some of the allegations against Berlusconi in context, the political reaction against Luttazzi was extreme.



While the book L’ Odore dei Soldi, (The Smell of Money) by Marco Travaglio was far more damaging to Berlusconi, because it was not being talked about in the media, it was perceived as a threat. However, when a late night talk show host began talking about the book with its author and the ratings soon began to climb as the host questioned the origins of Berlusconi’s fortune, Berlusconi’s employment of a mafiaioso stable hand Vittorio Mangano, and his links to a suspected friend of the mafia Marcello Dell’Utri, Luttazzi was treated as if he had carried out a political assassination. Within hours of the broadcast, the head of the public television station RAI2 that is a moderate public station, along with the news director of the station were called on to resign by Berlusconi’s political allies.

Although the timing of the incident occurring so close during an election contributed to the political uproar, further highlighting why Italy is considered a partial free country for the press were the statements by the leader of the Order of Journalists, Mario Petrina, who denounced the program by Luttazzi in the strongest possible terms. A group, which is supposed to protect and represent the interests of journalists, Petrina, declared that Luttazzi had killed the rules of journalism that require a chance for rebuttal. Even the journalists union tried to file charges against Luttazzi for acting like a journalist, even though he was not certified as one. However, as Sabina Guzzanti and Beppe Grillo have proved, in Italy It is Up to Comedians to say serious things.