Statement from the editorial board of Il Sole 24 Ore

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Dear readers, dear readers,
once again, therefore with the aggravating circumstance of recidivism, 4 pages of Focus China were published in the Sole 24 Ore on Sunday 26 March. Already in December and in the recent past, on behalf of the editorial staff, we complained about forms and contents. Where, as for the former, the very ambiguous model of the editorial is re-proposed, without making it clear that it is an advertising communication (how many of you readers know that 24 Ore System is the advertising agency of the group?), and where, for increase the opacity, the client is not clearly identified.

Even more serious, however, are the contents (remember that editorial control is also due on advertising), with respect to which the titles that follow one another on the pages are eloquent: ranging from “In 2022, the Chinese GDP has reached a new record”, to “Foreign enterprises still focus on investment in China” to land with a significant “China, a hotspot for foreign investment”. In short, pure propaganda to attract investments from Italy to China. And yet a propaganda that we deem unspeakable, given that it places the pages of the newspaper at the disposal of an economic system and a State (the permeability, if not the identity, between one and the other is absolute) which are characterized rather for the absence of the basic elements of a democracy.

In other words, Il Sole 24 Ore lent itself to beating the drum for a dictatorship, which to the traditional absence of political pluralism, freedom of opinion and expression, respect for minorities, is moreover today increasingly entrenched in foreign policy on a pro-Putin support.

Moreover. The editorial staff had been assured of prior communication on the publication, in order to offer it the possibility of intervening promptly. A commitment obviously rejected.

To a company that claims to be inclusive and sustainable, to a company that in these hours is calling the editorial staff to consider the “moral and material” interests of the Sole 24 Ore group even in taking on external non-journalistic assignments (!), we ask you to know what are the moral interests underlying the (umpteenth) publication of the 4 pages of Focus China. We are afraid to intuit the material ones. Unfortunately.