Claudia Di Pasquale is the new co-presenter of Report

Claudia Di Pasquale will be presenting "Report" alongside Daniele Piervincenzi. The appointment was decided by Paolo Corsini, director of Rai Approfondimento, following Giulia Presutti’s withdrawal; on Tuesday, she had stepped down from the role in a letter to the management in which she described the programme as having run aground and stated that she wished to step aside for the good of the programme. The new series will begin on 8 November, as planned.

Di Pasquale has been working on Report since 2011, when the programme was still presented by Milena Gabanelli. A native of Sicily, she began her career in print media in 2000, contributing to La Sicilia, Repubblica, il Venerdì, D la Repubblica delle Donne and the weekly magazine Diario. From 2007 to 2011, she was a correspondent for ‘Exit’, the in-depth current affairs programme on La7 presented by Ilaria D’Amico. In 2006, she won the Mario Formenton Prize scholarship; in 2009, she was a finalist for the Ilaria Alpi Prize with ‘Il mercato dei voti’, an investigation into the 2008 Sicilian regional elections, and in 2019 she won the Premiolino award for “Un sottosegretario a San Marino”, which examined the political and financial intrigues in the Republic of San Marino. 

On Thursday afternoon, when she arrived at the newsroom, her colleagues welcomed her with applause, hugs and shouts of joy. Di Pasquale told his colleagues that he had accepted the role solely because it had been the entire Report team who had asked him to take it on. The correspondents issued a statement expressing their satisfaction at his appointment and at those of Bernardo Iovene and Giulio Valesini as chief editors: the two had turned down the same role in recent days.

Sigfrido Ranucci, who was removed from Rai on 28 August, said he was delighted with the choice: “She is a truly outstanding professional – rigorous, tough and independent. She would have been one of my top choices in a normal corporate decision-making process, had Corsini asked me.” That same morning, at the press conference to launch Ore 14, Corsini had responded to those asking him about the method used: “The editor chooses the presenters; that’s what I’m paid for.”

Just before that press conference, at the offices on Via Teulada, Iovene and the correspondent Luca Bertazzoni bumped into Salvo Sottile: an exchange of accusations and insults ensued. Opposition members of the Rai board spoke of the disastrous handling of the case and called for an extraordinary board meeting to be convened.