la Repubblica (meaning: "the Republic") is, as of 2008, the second largest circulation^[2] Italian daily general-interest newspaper. It was founded in 1976 in Rome by Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso led by Eugenio Scalfari and Carlo Caracciolo and Arnoldo Mondadori Editore. Born as Radical/Socialist newspaper^[3], it has since kept a centre-left political stance.^[4]

History[link]

Foundation[link]

la Repubblica was founded by Eugenio Scalfari, also director of the weekly magazine L'Espresso. The publisher Carlo Caracciolo and Mondadori had invested 2.3 billion liras (half each) and an even balance was calculated at 150,000 copies. Scalfari invited along a few trusted colleagues: Gianni Rocca, chief central, then Giorgio Bocca, Sandro Viola, Mario Pirani, Miriam Mafai, Barbara Spinelli, Natalia Aspesi and Giuseppe Turani. The cartoons were the prerogative of Giorgio Forattini, until 1999.

Early life[link]

The newspaper was published for the first time January 14, 1976. It was presented to the public audience as the first Italian Tabloid, with some sections, such as sports and business, intentionally left aside. When it was founded, it was intended to be a "second newspaper", with only major news at the national level, to an audience that has already read the facts of the day on a local newspaper. It was composed of 20 pages and was published from Tuesday to Sunday.

During the first two years it built up a core-audience identified between the centre-left and the Italian Communist Party (PCI). In 1977 Scalfari cottoned on the novelty represented by the sprawling student movement, "Repubblica" picked up on it and began its expansion. The strength of the newspaper lay particularly in the comments section, which was always incisive and thought-provoking. In the meantime, to the group of editors was added Giampaolo Pansa, from Corriere della Sera, alongside Rocca and Pirani in the role of Deputy Director.

In early 1978, average sales amounted to 114,000 copies. During the 55 days of the Moro kidnapping the Repubblica backed the policy of hardline non-negotiation while reporting with much attention on the pro-negotiation approach led by Bettino Craxi of the Italian Socialist Party PSI. The paper's stance proved popular and, by the end of the year, the daily sales reached 140,000 copies. In 1979, with an average print run of 180,000 copies, it achieved a break-even budget. The size of the newspaper increased with total pages going up from 20 to 24. Also, the newspaper decided for the first time to cover sports and veteran reporter Gianni Brera was added to the roster.

In 1981 the Corriere della Sera was hit by a scandal when chief editor Franco Di Bella was outed as a member of secret masonic lodge P2. This allowed Repubblica to win extra readers and to recruit a number of prestigious commentators such as Enzo Biagi and Alberto Ronchey from the Corriere. On a quest to top circulation figures in Italy, chief editor Scalfari launched new reader-friendly initiatives. There were now 40 pages, including various news sections, entertainment and sport. The newspaper was now pitched as an "omnibus newspaper" (a paper catering for all types of readers).

Politically, while the paper kept backing the progressive left, its approach to governmental parties was altered: its traditional opposition to Bettino Craxi's line was coupled on the other hand with overtures to Ciriaco De Mita, one of the leading figures on the DC Left [5]. This also seemed to pay off as in 1985 "la Repubblica" sold an average of 372,940 copies, about 150,000 more than in 1981[6].

1986 marked the newspaper's tenth birthday. A special issue was released in celebration, Ten years 1976/1985 consisting of 10 files in coated paper, one per each year, with the re-issuing of many original articles. The launch was backed by a successful advertising campaign featuring a young university student seen purchasing "la Repubblica". Ten years later, the same student is pictured as an adult. He's holding the same newspaper, but in the meantime he's worked his way up to an important managerial position in a large company. The same year saw the launch of weekly financial supplement Affari & finanza, edited by Giuseppe Turani. "la Repubblica" continued the game of catch up with Corriere della Sera and, on some occasions, (December 1986) they actually managed to overtake their rivals.

In 1987 "la Repubblica" launched a prize competition called Portfolio, a type of stock market-based lottery. Readers were encouraged to buy the newspaper daily in order to check shares value. The prize turned out more lucrative than the supplements, the latter increasing sales for one or two days a week only. "la Repubblica", gained almost 200,000 copies within three months, stretching to a total daily average of nearly 700,000. [7]. At that point, "la Repubblica" became the best-selling Italian newspaper.

The Corriere della Sera hit back with a free Saturday magazine and in turn "la Repubblica" reciprocated with their own magazine, "Venerdì", launched on 16 October 1987, the same day as "Affari & Finanza". The via Solferino publishing group won't be able to reclaim the top spot for yet another two years.

"Segrate War" (Guerra di Segrate)[link]

At the end of the Eighties, believing that a stronger financial support was needed for the growth of the group, Carlo Caracciolo and Eugenio Scalfari (main shareholders of the Espresso group) sold all their shares to Carlo De Benedetti.

Already a major shareholder of Mondadori, Benedetti took the Espresso group together with the Milan publisher, with the goal of becoming the main shareholder, buying the stocks of Arnoldo Mondadori’s heirs. Silvio Berlusconi prevented it, starting the so called “Segrate War” (from the town of Segrate close to Milan where the Mondadori main office is located). In 1991, after more than two years of legal and financial battles, the struggle was ended by the controversial entrepreneur Giuseppe Ciarrapico on behalf of the prime minister of the time, Giulio Andreotti, that persuaded De Benedetti and Berlusconi to split the “Grande Mondadori”. De Benedetti received “La Repubblica”, “L’Espresso” and the local newspapers, Berlusconi received Mondadori without the newspapers. The controversial operation was the main point of a lawsuit that involved Berlusconi, charged with corruption of legal proceedings. This lawsuit became famous as the "Lodo Mondadori" (the Mondaroi Decision). A sentence on the 3 October 2009 by the Causa Civile (Civil Court of Milan) pronounced that Berlusconi’s Fininvest must compensate the CIR of Carlo De Benedetti a total of 750 million euros for the financial losses due to "perdita di chance" (lost opportunities) from the Lodo Mondadori decision. ^{[5] [6]}

In the following years new publishing projects were added to the newspaper information offer. “La Repubblica”, that up to that day was never released on Monday, buys for 50 millions of lire the brand “Lunedì di Repubblica”, satirical magazine and first true/false newspaper published by Vincenzo Sparagna, author of Frigidaire.^[7] the launch occurred on the 10 January 1994: on this period the newspaper has an average circulation of 660.000 copies. 1995, besides being the year of the introduction of the supplements “Musica! Rock & altro” and “Salute”, is the year of the graphical revolution: colour is introduced on the first page and in the advertisements.

On May 1996, after twenty years Eugenio Scalfari handed over as Editor in Chief to the current editor Ezio Mauro but remained an important contributor within the newspaper. In the same year the weekly women's supplement “D” (Donne) was launched.

”La Repubblica” after Scalfari[link]

1996-9[link]

On April 5, 1996 the website http://www.repubblica.interbusiness.it^{[dead link]} was launched as a collaborative effort with Digital and Interbusiness (a unit of Telecom Italia), as an on-line trial version of the newspaper, created for election of the April 21.

In August 1996 Mauro began a project “Repubblica lavori in corso” (Repubblica - work in progress), with the objective of testing the organization for the realization of an on-line edition. In this phase the project was coordinated by Vittorio Zambardino, Gualtiero Pierce and Ernesto Assante, with technical direction by Alessandro Canepa.

On January 14, 1997 the on-line version of the newspaper Repubblica.it was launched, later to become the main Italian information website, with over 10.6 millions users.^[8]

2000-[link]

In 2004, through a gradual process, the newspaper introduced colour in every page. This decision shifted the whole Italian newspaper market, forcing the competition to adopt similar measures.

On 19 October 2007 the newspaper's graphics and layout were renovated. La Repubblica split in two newspapers: one dedicated to the news and the other (Called “R2”) to analysis of current events.

Current position[link]

The newspaper could be regarded as close to the moderate left wing of the political spectrumside, although it has never spared criticism of the parties and politicians of this grouping including, among other things, the so-called "moral problem" of Italian politics (first mentioned by Italian politician Enrico Berlinguer) and the fragmentation of left-wing political forces.

The newspaper has always had a quite critical line towards Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, especially criticizing his conflict of interest as both entrepreneur and politician. In August 2009 Berlusconi sued the newspaper ^[9] after it published ten questions addressed to him (and which he refused to answer, most of these questions involved the escort scandal directly connected to him).

“La Repubblica” is also characterized for its stand against the Catholic Church, often criticizing it, especially on ethical topics and its interference in these issues, which were vehemently denounced by Scalfari.

On the 20th of November 2007, the newspaper exclusively revealed some wiretapping transcripts between certain RAI and Mediaset directors, aimed at modifying some parts of the TV scheduling of 2005 (regarding the death of the Pope and the regional elections of 2005).^[10]

Supplements and features[link]

• La Domenica di Repubblica: Started in November 2004 and published every Sunday, it is composed of 20 pages dedicated to the insights of current events, show business, lifestyle and free time. "La Domenica di Repubblica" is inspired by Sunday editions of the main British newspapers, enriched by numerous features on several topics.
• L'Almanacco dei libri: Published since 2004 every Saturday with 8 pages of reviews and charts of books.
• Il Venerdì: Weekly magazine.
• Diario di Repubblica: Twice-weekly (Tuesday and Friday) of 4 pages inside the newspaper with insights into important topics of current times analyzing one key word. At the end of the year the pages of the "Diary" are collected and published in a bound book sold with the newspaper.
• Album di Repubblica: special feature of the journal.
• D – La repubblica delle Donne: Weekly magazine primarily aimed at women, which can be downloaded free of charge from its website.^[11]
  • DCasa: weekly supplement devoted to housing issues, which can be downloaded free of charge from its website.^[12]
• Velvet Monthly magazine devoted to fashion since November 2006.
• xL Monthly magazine aimed at the youth market since August 2005.
• Metropoli: Weekly feature on multi-cultural Italy.
• Viaggi: Weekly feature devoted to travel.
• Salute: Weekly feature devoted to health issues.
• Il Lavoro, formerly a Genoan socialist newspaper, nowadays a feature published only in the local Ligurian edition.

The newspaper has also published The New York Times International Weekly on Mondays since 2004. This English language supplement features articles selected from The New York Times and can be downloaded free of charge from La Repubblica's website.^[13]

Current Editorial staff[link]

Editors[link]

• 1976 to 1996: Eugenio Scalfari
• 1996 to present: Ezio Mauro

Journalists[link]

Previous Editorial Staff[link]

Cartoonists[link]

• Francesco Tullio Altan
• Massimo Bucchi
• Ellekappa
• Giorgio Forattini (until 1999)

Circulation[link]

Source Ads – Accertamenti Diffusione Stampa

Notes[link]

See also[link]

	Rome portal
	Journalism portal

• Repubblica Radio TV

External links[link]

• La Repubblica Official Website (Italian)
• La Repubblica Official Mobile Website (Italian)
• La Repubblica on Twitter: [3] and [4] (Italian)

Beppe Grillo
Leader of the Five Star Movement
Incumbent
Assumed office October 4, 2009
Personal details
Born	(1948-07-21) 21 July 1948 (age 63) Genoa, Italy
Nationality	Italian
Political party	Five Star Movement
Relations	Married
Children	6
Occupation	Comedian, Activist, Politician
Religion	Roman Catholicism
Website	http://www.beppegrillo.it/

Giuseppe Piero Grillo, better known as Beppe Grillo (born 21 July 1948), is an Italian activist, blogger, comedian and actor. He has been involved in politics since 2009 as leader of the Five Star Movement.

Biography[link]

Grillo was born in Genoa, Liguria.

After receiving his degree as an accountant, Grillo became a comedian by chance, improvising a monologue in an audition. Two weeks later he was discovered and launched by Italian TV presenter Pippo Baudo. He subsequently participated in the variety show Secondo Voi for two years (1977–78). Later, in 1979, he participated in Luna Park by Enzo Trapani, and Fantastico.

In the 1980s his success rose further, thanks to shows like Te la do io l'America (1982, 4 episodes) and Te lo do io il Brasile (1984, six episodes). In these shows, he narrated his experiences of his visits to the United States and Brazil, with anecdotes and witticisms about the culture, lifestyle and beauty of these places.

As a result, his popularity grew more and more, and he became the protagonist of another show developed especially for him, called Grillometro (Grillometer). In 1986, he was the star of prize-winning advertisements for a brand of yogurt.

Soon after this, his performances began to be characterized by an increasing level of political satire, often expressed in such a direct way that he quickly offended a lot of Italian politicians. In 1987 during the Saturday night TV show Fantastico 7, he attacked the Italian Socialist Party and its leader Bettino Craxi, then Italy's Prime Minister, on the occasion of his visit in the People's Republic of China. Grillo said:

If the Chinese are all socialists, whom do they steal from?

The joke hinted at the totalitarianism of the PRC, but even more to the widespread corruption for which the Italian Socialist Party was known. As a consequence, Grillo was effectively and silently banished from publicly owned television; yet, he was vindicated a few years later when the Italian Socialist Party had to be disbanded in a welter of corruption scandals known as Tangentopoli, uncovered by the Mani pulite investigation. Craxi himself died in Tunisia, unable to return to Italy where he would have been jailed for several convictions.

Consequently, from the beginning of the 1990s his appearances on television became rare: according to many people, the reason for this is a silent ostracism by politicians offended by his revelations about their hidden financial activities, frauds and false claims. When one of his shows was finally allowed to be broadcast by RAI, in 1993, it obtained a record share of 16 million viewers. He was later banned definitively from Italian television.

He currently performs in theatres in Italy and abroad, often with outstanding success.^[1] Grillo's themes include energy usage, political and corporate corruption, finance, freedom of speech, child labour, globalization, and technology. Recently Grillo started to encourage the use of Wikipedia as the future of knowledge sharing, and generally he is a strong proponent of internet freedom.^[2]

Political activism[link]

Beppe Grillo in Bologna speaking at V-Day.

Grillo has spearheaded several national and international political campaigns. On Sept. 8, 2007, he organized a "V-Day Celebration" in Italy; the "V" stood for vendetta, vengeance, and vaffanculo ("fuck off"). During the rally, Grillo projected the names of two dozen Italian politicians who had been convicted of crimes ranging from corruption and tax evasion to abetting a murder. More than 2 million Italians participated in this rally.^[3] Grillo also used this rally to urge Italians to sign a petition calling for the introduction of a Bill of Popular Initiative to remove members of the Italian Parliament who have criminal convictions of any kind from their office.^[4] According to Internet scholars, V–day was the first case in Italian history of a political demonstration developed and promoted via word–of–mouth mobilization on the blogosphere and the social web.^[5]

This was followed by the second V-Day on 25 April 2008, in Turin, S.Carlo square. This V-Day was dedicated to the Italian press and its government financial support; Grillo heavily criticized the Italian press for the lack of freedom; Umberto Veronesi (about his support for incinerators); NATO bases in Italy, the politicians (Silvio Berlusconi had recently been re-elected) and Retequattro, still holding on to TV frequencies already assigned to Europa 7 [2].

Beppe Grillo in Turin during electoral campaign.

On 1 September 2005, thanks to contributions from readers of his blog, Grillo bought a full page advertisement in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica in which he called for the resignation of the Bank of Italy's (then) governor Antonio Fazio over the Antonveneta banking scandal. In October 2005, Time chose him as one of the "European Heroes 2005" for his constant battle against corruption and financial scandals.^[6]

On 22 November 2005 Grillo also bought a page in the International Herald Tribune, again claiming that members of the Italian Parliament ought not to represent citizens if they have ever been convicted in a court of law, even in the first degree of the three available in the Italian system.^[7] His blog now contains a regularly updated list of members of the Italian Parliament who have been convicted in all three degrees, in what he calls "operation Clean Parliament".^[8] Grillo claimed, in 2007, that data suggested that even Scampia, the most dangerous suburb of Naples and one of the areas with the highest crime rate in Europe, actually had a lower crime rate than the Italian parliament's membership.^[9]

On 26 July 2007 Grillo was permitted to speak to the members of the European Parliament in Brussels, where he drew attention to the dangerous, negative state of current Italian politics.^[10]

In August 2008, Grillo was the subject of a report on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's (ABC-TV) international affairs program "Foreign Correspondent". Titled "The Clown Prince" the report profiled Grillo's life, political activism, V Day campaign, and use of the internet as a political tool.^[11]

In 2010, he started a political movement called "Movimento 5 stelle" ("Movement five stars"), without the desire to be a leader and to be elected, but only to join, by the Internet, people who believe in ideals like honesty and direct democracy, and saying that politicians are only subordinates of the people and that they should work for the country only for a short time and only if they are not condemned for crimes, and thinking about the problems of their country without any other interest. The movement will be truly a party chance only from the next political round, when they will purpose their name not only in some regions but also in the political elections. The five stars represent the five basic points of the shared program: Water, Environment, Transport, Connectivity, Growth.

Beppegrillo.it[link]

Grillo maintains a blog (available in Italian, English and Japanese) at beppegrillo.it which is updated daily. Comments to posts regularly top the thousands (in the Italian version). According to Technorati, the blog is ranked among the 10 most visited blogs in the world. In 2008, The Guardian ranked Grillo's blog among the world's most powerful blogs.^[12]

Grillo often receives letters of appreciation and support from prominent figures, such as Antonio Di Pietro (former Italian Minister of Infrastructures), Fausto Bertinotti (former President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies), Renzo Piano, and even Nobel Prize Winners (like Dario Fo, Joseph E. Stiglitz, Dalai Lama, Muhammad Yunus).^[13]

Legal issues[link]

In 1980 he was found guilty of manslaughter for a car accident in which he was the driver; three passengers lost their lives.^[14]

During his shows Grillo never hesitates to name firms and personalities he considers corrupt, always supporting his views with data and documents^{[citation needed]}. For this reason he has been sued several times for libel by many people and organizations which he had exposed, such as Telecom Italia.

When Italian judges were investigating the Parmalat scandal, which was then the world's largest corporate bankruptcy scandal ever, Grillo was called to testify as he anticipated the imminent collapse of the dairy conglomerate in one of his shows. When he was asked by judges how he has been able to discover that, he simply said that Parmalat's financial holes were so evident that anybody who had enough ability to see them would see them, since the corporate accounting was easily accessible.^[15]

Criticism[link]

Grillo is often criticized for his lifestyle. In particular, critics blame him for owning a motor yacht and a Ferrari sports car, both being in contradiction with his well known ecologist stance. In his blog he admits that he did, in fact, acquire both but has since sold them.^[14]

Grillo is also criticized for taking advantage of the Condono Tombale, a fiscal amnesty granted by the first Berlusconi government in 2001, which Grillo publicly opposed.^[16] Grillo commented on this issue during the V-Day demonstration. He said that he had personally benefitted by only €500^{[citation needed]}.

Grillo has proposed that members of the Italian Parliament who have a criminal record should be barred from public office. As Grillo himself has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter caused by a car accident^[14] his critics^[who?] say he has no right to represent Italians either. Grillo has always stated that he is not interested in becoming a member of the Italian Parliament anyway.^[14] Despite this, in July 2009 he publicly expressed his intention to present himself as a candidate for the PD's primary elections^[17] which, however, does not imply automatic presence in the Italian parliament.

Another proposal of his is that members of Parliament be limited to two government terms of office after which they might not stand again. Detractors^[who?] argue that this would shorten the political life of competent and expert politicians, usually drawing Alcide De Gasperi, Aldo Moro and Enrico Berlinguer as examples of brilliant politicians who served more than two terms. Marco Travaglio replied that, for that sake, also the political life of much less popular Clemente Mastella would have suffered.^[18]

Grillo is criticized as being a mere demagogue who attacks politicians on superficial issues and their private lives while unable to provide a valid alternative. For instance, Daniele Luttazzi, famous Italian satirist, criticized Grillo in 2007 in an open letter published on the website of the news magazine Micromega. Luttazzi accused Grillo of being a "demagogue" and a "populist", suggesting Grillo to choose between satire and politics, asserting the two are incompatible.^[19]

In 2007 Grillo criticized the "Memorial Day of Foibe Massacres and Istrian-Dalmatian exodus" and the President of the Italian Repubblic Giorgio Napolitano^[20]

Filmography[link]

Grillo has appeared in three movies:

• Cercasi Gesù (1982)
• Scemo di Guerra (1985)
• Topo Galileo (1987)

In 2008, Grillo featured in the documentary, The Beppe Grillo Story, produced by Banyak Films for Al Jazeera English.

References[link]

External links[link]

Official websites[link]

• The English version of Beppe Grillo's personal blog
• Beppe Grillo's fans meeting map around the world

Other resources[link]

• 'Time' article about Grillo
• 'New York Times' video about Grillo
• 'New Yorker' Beppe’s Inferno

Lucia Annunziata.

Lucia Annunziata (Sarno, August 8, 1950) is an Italian journalist.

Career[link]

This biographical section of an article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (January 2009)

Born in Sarno (in the Salerno province), at the age of 13 she moved to Salerno, where she attended high school and university, obtaining a degree in History and Philosophy. In 1979 she became a professional journalist, working as a correspondent from the United States first for Il Manifesto, then for La Repubblica. In 1993 she won an International Fellowship from the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. She then went on to work for the Corriere della Sera and finally for RAI (Italy's national public broadcasting company) in 1995 (with the "Linea Tre" program on Rai Tre); in August 1996 she became executive editor of the TG 3, although she resigned from the job at the end of November. In 2000, she became executive editor of the neonate news agency ApBiscom (subsequently renamed APCOM). She became President of RAI on March 13, 2003, and resigned on May 4, 2004; she was the second woman President of RAI (after Letizia Moratti in 1994). In 2005-2006, she hosted the interview programm In 1/2 h for Rai Tre, in which she famously interviewed then Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Currently, she works as columnist for La Stampa and as a panelist for The Washington Post.

The Berlusconi interview[link]

On March 12, 2006, in the middle of the electoral campaign for the Italian general election, Lucia Annunziata interviewed the then Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri Silvio Berlusconi, who was running for a second term, on her television program In 1/2 h (In half an hour). During the interview, she asked pressing questions about the works of Berlusconi's administration, often interrupting the Prime Minister's statements, which annoyed him to the point that he stood up and left the room halfway through the program.

The interview was cut short when Berlusconi stood up and left the room. She later reported^{[citation needed]} that Berlusconi had handed her a list of questions he wanted to be asked, and requested she did not diverge from it during the interview; however, during the actual program, she did not follow the list and asked pressing questions, often interrupting Silvio Berlusconi's visible attempts at returning on track.

The political control board of RAI accused Annunziata of violating the Par Condicio, since that law states the interviewer should keep to a neutral stance during political interviews. She resigned from her job as executive editor of RAI in protest for Berlusconi's conflict of interest.

External links[link]

• - Column on The Washington Post website (with photograph)^{[dead link]}
• - Video of the Berlusconi interview from "In 1/2h" (in Italian)
• - Nieman Fellows, Class of 1993