The bonfire of the Ranucci method. Stories, quirks and escape routes

The remarkable spectacle – part comedy, part grotesque, part surreal and thoroughly engaging – that has unfolded in recent weeks around the complex relationship between Sigfrido Ranucci and Valter Lavitola offers an opportunity to focus on two themes that are symmetrical, mirror images of one another and, in their own way, both exceptional. The first spectacle, which has been the subject of much scrutiny, concerns the details of the judicial inquiry, including the full reconstruction of last October’s attack organised to target Ranucci – an attack that Valter Lavitola claimed to have masterminded himself, in order to increase the security detail for his friend Ranucci (the self-appointed defenders of Ranucci’s rights, convinced that someone else is actually behind that bomb – the Mafia, the Camorra, organised crime, rogue intelligence services, perhaps even the government – have been trying for a few days now to put forward a theory that has not previously been widely supported: it’s true, they say, Lavitola has spoken, but a statement made before a magistrate is not enough to consider that statement truthful; facts, evidence and certainties are needed: let’s make a note of that, as Massimo Troisi would have said). The second spectacle, which has received less scrutiny, is the one that will endure regardless of the outcome of the investigation into Lavitola and his bomb-throwing gang, and which we might try to place within a specific framework: the Ranucci method.

The Ranucci method – which is distinct from the ‘Report’ method, a programme which, for all its flaws, errors and missteps, has in the past produced not only rubbish but also genuine investigations – is a method that embodies a specific, clear and explicit journalistic practice, of which Ranucci has become one of the leading advocates. The Ranucci method works like this. It thrives on a culture of suspicion, on conjecture, on insinuations, on scraps of evidence, on references to ‘systems’, of magistrates’ memos, of anonymous interviews, of out-of-context wiretaps, of theories passed off as truths, and of skilful and unscrupulous cut-and-paste tactics used to try to demonise whoever they choose to focus on. To make the method effective, however, it is not enough simply to use these ingredients. Something more is required. And that ‘something more’ concerns the qualities possessed by the chef who skilfully stirs the cauldron. Shrewd cutting and pasting, the cunning use of scraps of evidence, and theories passed off as truths are not enough. One must possess the ‘inconvenience’ stamp, through which one attempts to seal everything one touches with the wax seal of moral truth. To obtain that stamp – as is often the case even with the most shrewd magistrates – it does not matter whether one achieves results, or verifies that one’s investigations were based on concrete facts rather than on strands of manure that have ended up in the fan.

To earn that label, you need to make your objectives clear; you need to present yourself on the scene as the watchdog of power that everyone wants to silence in order to shut up those who tell truths alternative to those proposed by the system; and, above all, you need a propaganda machine that turns every scrap of evidence you produce into truth and transforms your actions into acts beyond reproach. This propaganda machine is usually the anti-establishment political agenda which, by turning the heroic journalist into a loose cannon planted beneath the system, rejoices when the heroic journalist channels their energy into striking at the symbols of the system. But the most important drumbeat – the fundamental cog in the media-judicial circus – is that which stems from the judiciary, a natural occurrence in a world where the line between reporter and prosecutor often becomes very thin; a circus which, when it places its hand on a journalist’s shoulder, confers upon them the power to be regarded as a bearer of truth and not merely of points of view, regardless of that journalist’s actual results. What counts are the objectives, not the results. What counts are the intentions, not the evidence. What counts are the theories, not the facts. The Ranucci method consists of presenting itself, to the satisfaction of many, as the last bastion of free information in a world where information is ‘compromised’; consequently, any attempt to criticise that method is not merely a point of view. It becomes something more. Complicity with the crimes that journalist is fighting against, an existential threat to his freedom. And following this logic, as Lavitola had clearly understood, the more support grows, the harder it becomes to criticise the method, and the more likely it is that this method – as Ranucci himself may well have realised – could become untouchable and beyond question even in other spheres, including the political arena.

Aldo Grasso, in his delightful book published by Raffaello Cortina, "Cara televisione", argues that the proliferation of ‘heroic’ journalists in Italy also stems from a major misunderstanding linked to the myth of objectivity. The myth of objectivity, says Grasso, quite rightly, is a manifestation of false consciousness. The journalist’s task is not to convince the reader that they are telling the truth, but rather to warn them that they are recounting their own truth, whilst acknowledging that other truths also exist; for a journalist who tells the truth is, quite simply, a journalist who not only avoids passing off conjecture as fact, but also admits to having interpreted the facts in accordance with their own opinions. The heroic journalist does exist; Italy is full of heroic journalists. But when, at the grand ball of news reporting, a journalist does not confine themselves to reporting facts but chooses to divide the world into those on the right side and those who are not, they may find themselves with a friend eager to exploit their fame to make their political profile bombproof. The limits of the Lavitola method will be scrutinised by the magistrates. The limits of the Ranucci method perhaps also deserve to be scrutinised by all those who today are trying not to apply the culture of suspicion – modelled on Ranucci – to the Ranucci case; that is, the followers of the ‘heroic journalist’ who, having become accustomed to dividing the world into those on the right side and those who are not, are now desperately trying to resist the siren song urging them to apply to Ranucci the very same method that Ranucci might well have applied to any of his enemies who found themselves in his position: presumed to be Lavitola’s accomplice until proven otherwise – naturally, whilst playing on a few scraps of truth.