The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

Marko at Neorama points us to this story coming from Reuters which reports that Italian cartoonist Vauro Senese has been fired by the broadcaster RIA, purportedly for drawing a cartoon commenting on the recent earthquake which claimed so many lives. The cartoon was used in the programme Annozero, fronted by anchor Michele Santoro, which was critical of the authorities response to the disaster. Many critics, opposition politicians (and I believe Marko feels this way himself) are crying foul because the criticism is levelled at the Berlusconi administration and the recently appointed head of RAI who fired Senese was given his job by, well, Prime Minister and serious media magnate Berlusconi…

(the ‘offending’ cartoon – the gravedigger in the disaster zone has been told to increase the size of the graveyard, a reference to the authorities proposal to relax rules on building extensions to help deal with those made homeless by the quake; borrowed from Il Manifesto)

The Italian media tycoon’s media interests (or indeed domination as many refer to it) have often been seen to clash with his political career, so it isn’t hard to see why many might interpret this as a sledgehammer form of censorship rather than the disciplining of a cartoonist they felt had transgressed a boundary of taste (given that Berlusconi has been linked with changing Italian laws in ways which, coincidentally of course, favour him, that critical view is not entirely without foundation, I think, not to mention his public anger at recent negative media coverage of his foreign meetings with other heads of state and thinly veiled threats of taking action against those who made the critcisms). And bearing in mind that the same Berlusconi made the utterly callous remark that the quake survivors should treat living in emergency tent accomadation as a camping holiday just a few days ago, even if their alleged reason for firing Senese is true (and many doubt it, as I say), surely for such grossly offensive and insensitive remarks the Prime Minister should also lose his job? Otherwise someone might think there were double standards being employed here…If any of our friends in Italy are reading this, it would be interesting to hear what their thoughts are on this issue.