The important thing is to have someone to blame: news of the whingeing

At the very least, when Robert Hughes published The Culture of Whinge, back in the days of Our Lord, he took aim at targets of some substance, of some logical significance or of a deconstruction of logic. The purging of past literature of what appeared to be incorrect, victimhood as a new category of social excellence, the tribes of grievance. These were disasters that we recognised only later, and which many still fail to see. Today, news has turned into the newsworthiness of whingeing, and it is even worse; perhaps even a man of Hughes’s calibre would throw in the towel. Take the treatment (that’s the technical term used for screenplays) of a news story that is obviously tragic, and very serious as it concerns work. The death of Andrea Moretti, aged 22, who fell whilst working suspended on a rope to install the new lighting at the Colosseum. “Subcontracting!” said Landini. The subcontracting, as far as we know now – and this is always more than someone like Landini can possibly know – was in order. Furthermore, as an experienced rock climber specialising in rappelling whilst harnessed and braked by a ‘gri-gri’, Andrea Moretti was working for a specialist firm (owned by a relative) precisely for that type of work. Neither the experts nor even the magistrates (as even Il Fatto reports) yet know the exact circumstances; it is also tragically possible that it was a mistake or a fatality – a rope that came loose. Many mountaineers have died in accidents like this. Nothing justifies a CGIL trade unionist declaring: “You can’t always call it an accident; this is yet another murder.” Nothing justifies students from activist groups demonstrating with the slogan “You shouldn’t die at work at the age of 22”. Hughes spoke of ‘victimhood rhetoric’. Here we are witnessing the exploitation of victimhood through the press, at the expense of the victim’s memory. The important thing is to have someone to blame (who remembers the case of the divers who died in a cave in the Maldives?). But nothing justifies headlines such as ‘Giuli’s black day’. La Repubblica did just that; there, we move from exploiting the news to the most petty propaganda.

‘The culture of whingeing is the corpse of 1960s liberalism,’ Hughes said. The newsworthiness of whingeing, on the other hand, is the corpse of journalism, ravaged by decades of populism. Another tragic incident: a burglar who had broken into a courtyard in Baldissero d’Alba was killed by a lorry driver who lives there. At present, not even the post-mortem has been able to determine whether it was a case of self-defence in the strict sense, or murder. Meanwhile, the newsworthiness of such wailing inevitably favours the victim’s narrative. And this leads the Corriere – which sent two correspondents – to report, in unison and without any opposing views, the words of the deceased’s wife: ‘My son no longer has a father and I am devastated by grief. The whole truth must come out; I only ask that justice take its course’. As if he’d been killed in a workplace accident. But since that’s how it’s being treated, the Corriere writes: “It cannot therefore be ruled out that, in order to make some quick and easy money, he had once again joined forces with old friends specialising in theft and robbery.” It cannot be ruled out.

To provide a lighter counterpoint to the news—though the criticism remains valid—the diocese in Palermo has decided to combine two sacraments, First Communion and Confirmation, into a single rite following a five-year course of catechism. The decision provoked a strong backlash.

A wise decision, if education is to be taken seriously. However, a ‘Faith, Economy and Community’ committee has been established, promoted by pastry chefs, confectioners, jewellers, wedding favour makers and photographers ‘to protect the hundreds of family-run micro-businesses affected by the decision to hold First Communion and Confirmation on the same day’. They have written to the bishop. Instead of acknowledging the initiative as a positive effort to keep children engaged in traditional rites rather than exposed to the risks of TikTok and knives, the newspapers are filled with headlines lamenting the change. ‘According to an internal survey of shopkeepers, a large proportion claim to have lost 70 per cent of their earnings.’ Even Hughes would have given up at this point.