Publishing, Renzi is not the first: from Veltroni to Mattarella the newspaper directors-politicians

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As Walter Veltroni And Sergio Mattarella. With the announcement of the direction of the Reformist Matthew Renzi he immediately clarified that his new commitment will be added to that of senator of the Republic. “Many parliamentarians have been directors,” recalled the former prime minister. As if to underline that there is no incompatibility between the two positions. And if the double jacket was worn by the former leader of the Democratic Party (all’Unità) and by the current president of the Republic (al Popolo) – the Tuscan senator seems to retort to his critics and opponents – because he can’t do the same ?

The Unit, from Ingrao to Veltroni

Comparisons are always complicated, especially when they are made to reconnect different eras, as the current phase undoubtedly presents itself and an already very distant past of the Republic when there were traditional parties and their newspapers. It is true, however, that in the case of “Unità” (for years organ of the PCI) the figure of director-parliamentarian is a tradition that lasted almost half a century: it opens with Peter Ingrao who had worked in the editorial staff of the clandestine unit of Milan in 1943 and then assumed its direction in 1947 from Rome, a year before becoming a deputy. He remained director for a decade, deputy for 45. As director he experienced “the most serious mistake” of his political life, he recounted years later in his autobiography “I wanted the moon” (Einuadi). «I wrote an editorial for l’Unità which condemned the Hungarian revolt»: shocked and embittered, at the news of the tanks, Ingrao walked around Rome for hours, until he reached the house of Palmiro Togliatti to whom he communicated his dismay. «Togliatti – he recalls – answered me dryly: “Today, however, I drank an extra glass of wine”».

Between Ingrao and Veltroni there will be 12 directors, all executives and parliamentarians of the PCI (later PDS), including Alfredo Reichlin, Giancarlo Pajetta, Massimo D’Alema (who has not had an easy relationship with journalists). However, the case cited by Renzi, that of Veltroni, is the most anomalous: because the former minister, former mayor of Rome and former secretary of the Democratic Party, transformed the newspaper founded by Antonio Gramsci, bringing it to political shores far from politics in the strict sense. Following his many aptitudes in this (today Veltroni is above all a director and writer) he inaugurated the season of paid supplements with videocassettes and books (but also sticker albums).

Renzi made it known that for the Reformist “there will be a director, we will announce him shortly, because I don’t have a card”. Veltroni, on the other hand, has been registered as a professional journalist since 1983.

The People directed by Mattarella

Christian Democracy also had its own newspapers: il Popolo and la Discussione. The first was a newspaper wanted by Luigi Sturzo which began its publications in 1932. The second was founded in 1952 by Alcide De Gasperi. But Sergio Mattarella arrives at the direction of the People when the history of the DC is about to end: it is 1992 for the leadership of the newspaper the new secretary Mino Martinazzoli chooses Mattarella who, assuming the direction, as recalled by Pio Cerocchi who became editor in chief of the newspaper, said that “he would not have played at being a journalist”, even if he liked to participate in the life of the newspaper. The first editorial was dated November 3, 1992. “There is a terrain that the parties, even though they have to withdraw from many spaces improperly occupied, cannot afford to abandon: the terrain of politics” writes the new director introducing himself to his readers. A two-year period followed which shook politics and was the first to overwhelm the DC itself. In the summer of 1994 Mattarella tendered his resignation as political director with a letter to the new secretary of the PPI Rocco Buttiglione who, in the diaspora of the shield crusader, would have decided to place himself in the center-right led by Silvio Berlusconi.