Silencing the Fourth Estate: Italy’s democratic drift
03/09/2024
On July 29, Osservatorio Balcani Caucaso Transeuropa (OBCT), the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), and the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) hosted a webinar to mark the publication of the final report following the MFRR mission to Rome.
Amid unprecedented political interference in public media, widespread use of legal intimidation against dissenting journalists by government officials, a problematic defamation reform put forward by the ruling coalition, and the potential acquisition of AGI by one of Lega’s MPs, the MFRR organised an urgent mission to Italy on May 16 and 17, 2024.
Relying on the findings from meetings held during the mission and MFRR’s ongoing monitoring of the situation in the country, the report assesses the deterioration of media freedom in Italy. These challenges, indicative of a tense relationship between media and political actors, undermine independent and critical journalism, generating worrying implications for Italian democracy.
The mission observed that the chilling effect resulting from the contraction of freedom of expression and the governments’ attempts to silence the press signal a worrying democratic decline in Italy’s media freedom landscape.
