“Ranucci? We need to show respect for his replacements”. Carlo Bartoli, president of the Odg, speaks out

Reprimand from the Order. “Criticising a colleague is legitimate, but one must show respect in the choice of words. That is why I did not appreciate the tone of his remarks.” So said Carlo Bartoli, president of the National Council of the Order of Journalists, to Il Foglio, following yet another scathing attack by Sigfrido Ranucci on the two journalists appointed by Rai to replace him as presenters of Report: Giulia Presutti and Daniele Piervincenzi. Ever since Friday, when they were announced by Rai as the new presenters, Ranucci has done nothing but attack them. First by saying that they ‘undermine’ the programme’s professional standards, and then – in a Facebook post yesterday – by accusing them of not having earned the positions they hold. ‘I accepted your investigation because you asked me to, because you needed work,’ he wrote, addressing Piervincenzi, whilst regarding Presutti, ‘courage and mental resilience are not her strongest qualities. He gets by better with opportunism and cunning’. In his lengthy social media post, Ranucci reviews his own career, before downplaying the contribution made by his two colleagues to Report: “Giulia Presutti has produced, with notable impatience, a few ‘Lab’ segments. Never a main investigation”. The same goes for Piervincenzi: “A feature produced for Report — which, incidentally, was never broadcast, and which I re-edited a couple of times — does not make anyone a presenter.” According to Ranucci, it is “human, for a journalist, to wish to present the most important programme on Italian television. It is inhuman to think of doing so without having earned it, walking indifferently over its ruins”. And so we return to the concept of mediocrity, raised again on Friday and “which irritated you so much. It is not the person who has not made it who is mediocre. It is the person who has made it without having earned it who is mediocre”.

And so Ranucci’s fierce battle against Rai has turned into a crusade against his colleagues. President Carlo Bartoli has let us know that he did not appreciate the journalist’s harsh words, “nor the public shaming to which he was subjected. In any case, Ranucci’s case is not an isolated one,” observes the head of the Order, “we have witnessed offensive and inappropriate exchanges of accusations between colleagues who have lost their sense of proportion.” Last weekend, moreover, there was no shortage of friction and barbs within the Report team itself, some of which were even directed at Ranucci himself. “It has been a summer in which several journalists have tried to emulate the true ‘bad masters’,” concludes Bartoli, “those politicians who are quick to hurl invective and have little respect for people or institutions.”