Ferragni and Ranucci, victims of a fall from grace

The fall from grace. It is the sharp bend in a journey that seems to be going splendidly. Right up until the very last moment, when you still cannot see what lies on the other side of the bend – just like in the climactic scenes of thrillers – and then comes the crash, the fatal – or near-fatal – accident. The trajectory of contemporary media stars follows a different path to that of classic, established celebrities. It resembles a line more than a sturdy pyramid reaching towards the heavens. As success grows, so does its brilliance, but not its strength; and then, unfortunately – bang! – the unexpected strikes. Then the line melts away and a second life begins, in a dark underworld, where occasional flashes no longer evoke the former splendour, but only the illusion of the impossible. Grace cannot be restored: it is a law of the cycles of communication. Instead, loneliness creeps in and friends drift away, just like in that song.

Chiara Ferragni and Sigfrido Ranucci, two highly successful Italians in different fields, yet for comparable reasons: reliability, affection and a mandate of trust. Because when things go well, they really do go well, and talent bears great fruit. The rise in popularity is staggering, exponential. But the system may cease to bestow its favour upon some. No judgement is needed. All it takes is a suspicion, nurtured for just long enough to become common knowledge. On 13 August, Chiara Ferragni’s communications agency announced, in a brief statement, that it no longer represented her, wishing her “all the best for the future” – the customary polite formula used to wash one’s hands of the matter. On the same day, the Ferragni shop on Via del Babuino in Rome closed. These are minor details, but they are symptomatic of the silent withdrawal of those around her. Chiara has attempted a comeback – front row at Milan Fashion Week, the cameras seeking her out once more, the return to high society of the illustrious outcast. But true redemption from ‘Pandoro-gate’ is not a matter for the courts, but rather a matter of the choices made by the very public who had placed their trust in her on her word alone.

Sigfrido Ranucci has recently revealed a different version of the same mechanism. He is the victim of a genuine attack. But today, the victim may not enjoy narrative immunity: at best, he can only hope for a truce. All it takes is a businessman arrested as the alleged instigator, a friendship reconstructed for the sake of the front pages, a RAI audit that speaks of "damage to reputation" rather than the heroism of the reporter under police protection, and the victim becomes a stand-in defendant, in a limbo where no one condemns him but no one defends him unreservedly. The leading figure in Italian investigative journalism finds himself having to justify not an investigation, but his own romantic history – which he recklessly paraded in public – and other trivial side issues, such as a self-promotional review of his own book.

Ferragni falls because of one act: a sham charity campaign, a marketing blunder that ballooned to the point of taking on monstrous proportions in the form of a scam. Ranucci risks falling because of a reckless association: not for what he did, but for the people he associated with, for a friendship that blurred certain boundaries. She collapses; he falters. Two narratives of downfall – guilt and the shadow of guilt – which the media treats in the same way, with extreme rigour: suspending trust, and then waiting to see what remains. Ferragni is no longer the girl from Cremona who built an empire from a fashion blog: she is ‘the Pandoro girl’. Ranucci is no longer the director of uncomfortable investigative reports; he is ‘Lavitola’s friend’. Professional identity is replaced by a label that is a heavy burden to bear, yet destined to feature in the very first paragraph of every future biography. With a paranoid asymmetry, the media has little memory for merits, but a very long one for scandals. The algorithm that decides what we see – whether it’s about Ferragni, Ranucci or anyone else – makes no distinction between proven fraud and insinuated suspicion: it rewards both with visibility, because both generate clickable outrage. A culture that organises information as entertainment ends up treating every news item with the same emotional tone and the same attention span. It doesn’t matter what actually happened. What matters is how long it lasts, before the next scandal hits.

With a great deal of optimism, Ferragni has an audience that might start buying from her again – the market can forgive those who learn to sell their repentance well. But Ranucci’s profession thrives on credibility, not popularity, and this is an asset that cannot be bought back. A brand can relaunch itself. Once a journalist has cast doubt, they are branded. It is a state of disgrace: not the absence of innocence, but the absence of grace granted. Grace is either granted or lost. This summer, the Italian media landscape has decided to grant very little of it.