Le vite parallele di Ranucci e Tarallo

In Italy, a journalist is on trial for what Sigfrido Ranucci did. And the paradoxical thing is that this is not a case of mistaken identity. The story is the now-well-known Boccia-Sangiuliano case: in December 2024, the programme "Report" broadcast a feature containing the infamous telephone call between Gennario Sangiuliano and his wife, obtained under duress by his then-mistress, in which the then Minister of Culture was forced to confess to his affair with Boccia. Eight months after the broadcast on Rai3, parts of that private conversation were published on the social media channels of a local Campania-based website, Anteprima24, during an interview given by Boccia to the journalist Carlo Tarallo. Sangiuliano reported Ranucci and Tarallo for unlawful interference in private life, the offence that punishes anyone who obtains or disseminates recordings concerning a person’s private life made in private places.

Same facts, same offence, same magistrates, but completely different fates for the two journalists. On 2 October 2025, public prosecutors Giulia Guccione and Barbara Trotta of the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office ordered the removal of the audio recordings, arguing that the journalist Tarallo “could not possibly have been unaware of the criminal origin of the recording handed over to him by Boccia”, even though, as emerges from the investigation files themselves, Anteprima24 had published some excerpts from the videos broadcast by Report. Boccia had not handed those recordings over to Tarallo, but to Ranucci. A month later, on 11 November 2025, the same prosecutors from the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office requested, however, that the case against Ranucci and his correspondent Luca Bertazzoni be dismissed due to the absence of the subjective element of the offence: the Report journalists, unlike Tarallo, might not have been aware of the illegal origin of the recording. Meanwhile, in parallel, the legal dispute between Report and the Data Protection Authority continued, concluding on 22 January 2026 with the annulment of the 150,000 fine imposed by the Authority on Rai because, according to the Civil Court of Rome, the broadcast of the audio was in the public interest and an exercise of the right to report the news.

This brings us to 9 April 2026, when Investigating Magistrate Rosamaria De Lellis ordered the case against Ranucci and Bertazzoni to be dismissed, accepting the arguments put forward by the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office regarding the lack of evidence that the Report journalists were aware of the criminal methods used to record the telephone call in Boccia’s possession. At this point, the way seemed clear for Tarallo too. But no. On 25 June, two months later, the very same prosecutors from the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office who had sought and secured the dismissal of the case against Ranucci ordered Tarallo to stand trial for having published on a local website part of the recording that "Report" had broadcast during prime time on state television. Essentially, Ranucci, who received the recordings from Boccia, might not have known they were illegal, whereas Tarallo, who obtained them from Report, could not have been unaware that they were illegal. And for this reason, he deserves to stand trial: certain things simply aren’t done – unless Report does them. Thus, according to the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office, if any journalist is to pay the price for Ranucci’s scoop – in which he blurted out on Rai the private telephone conversation between Sangiuliano and his wife – it is only right that it should be Tarallo of Anteprima24.