The Representation of Minorities in Italian Media

This blog post gives an overview of the representation of minorities in Italian media. As it will emerge from the analysis, Italian media are far from being fair in their representation and approach to minorities.

“Ordine dei giornalisti”: an overview

In Italy, the profession of Journalist is regulated by the “Ordine dei Giornalisti”   (Journalists Order) a public organization that is in charge of managing the profession in Italy. Therefore, it is mandatory for every person who decides to become a journalist, to enroll in it and follow some specific courses. Moreover, the “Ordine dei Giornalisti” provides a collection of deontological rules that every journalist should follow. The collection is called “Testo unico dei doveri del giornalista” and is available on the website of the organization. The adapted version of the collection is in force since January 2021. Among the different articles, some are dedicated to the protection of minorities. For instance, according to the fifth article, when dealing with cases of femicide, violence, discrimination, or other news stories that involve sexual orientation and identity, journalists must avoid gender stereotypes as well as keep the respectful language, and avoid using images that could harm the victim. The sixth article deals with the representation of people who have disabilities or are subjected to serious illness. According to it, journalists must always respect the dignity of said people. Finally, the seventh article refers to foreign people and migrants. It establishes that journalists must refer to foreigners with appropriate terms that avoid discrimination against people from foreign countries and asylum seekers. Moreover, journalists should always give true information and avoid misleading news.

Misrepresentation of minorities on the news

However, despite having a strict deontological code, Italian broadcasting media and newspapers seem to forget to follow the aforementioned rules. In recent years, the problem of misrepresentation or real discrimination of minorities has been raised in the country. For instance, one of the latest cases of misrepresentation of minorities by Italian journalists is the one about the murder of a young boy, Willy Monteiro, who was killed in Colleferro, near Rome. Willy Monteiro was a black young man who, in 2020, was beaten to death by two older Italian men, because he tried to help a friend who was being harrassed. The case had a large media coverage in all the country and it brought up the problem of racism. However, as journalist Lorenzo Mastrodonato claimed, Italian media failed to tell the story of Willy Monteiro. As a matter of fact, newspapers and broadcast media narrated the case trying to make him look like a “good guy, despite being a second-generation immigrant”. As a consequence, it is evident that this kind of storytelling poorly conceals an evident form of racism coming from journalists. Indeed, stressing the concept of Willy Monteiro being a good guy “even if not Italian”, can make people question if his background could suggest anything else.

Use of slurs in broadcasting media 

Nevertheless, the cases that raised the most stir, all happened in 2021 and involve discriminating slurs being used on live TV. The first one involves Valeria Fabrizi, an Italian actress who used the N-word during a television program aired by one of the channels of the Italian National Public Broadcasting RAI. Despite the seriousness of the case, the TV presenter didn’t intervene or even say anything to apologise publicly. Neither RAI did anything. This event was denounced by some anti-racist activists who created the hashtag #CambieRAI and wrote a letter to the Italian media denouncing what happened. The hashtag and the mobilization of the activists opened a dialogue between the Italian media and the citizens asking for a change in the broadcasts. Around the same time that year, two Italian comedians used homophobic, racist, and misogynistic slurs during their program on Canale 5 (a channel that belongs to the private broadcasting media Mediaset). Their claim was that they wanted to deliberately criticise the “politically correct” culture. This event, didn’t go unnoticed, and as expected people started to protest on social media. However, no one properly apologized. To make matters worse, on 1st May 2021, RAI, tried to censor a famous rapper and influencer, Fedez, who, on the occasion of the “Concerto del primo Maggio”, decided to make a public discourse against some Italian politicians who made public homophobic statements. The “Concerto del primo Maggio” is a famous concert that takes place every year on the 1st of May in Rome and is shown live by RAI. On this occasion, Fedez was invited to perform. As he decided to make a speech, RAI asked to proofread it and to approve it in advance. However, when he was asked to omit some names and statements from it, the rapper decided to record a phone call with the vice director of RAI 3, who defined his speech "inappropriate", and denounced what happened. This resulted in another social media protest. This last event shows how Italian media seems to have double standards when dealing with minorities.

Unfortunately, what emerges from these stories is that Italian media, despite claiming to be unbiased toward minorities, needs to take action and change its politics as soon as possible.