The populist government of Italy occupied the chief post of the state television. The RAI is for the first time, led by sympathizers of the radical right-wing “Lega”. Bernd Riegert reports.
“I’ve never heard of a party. I have never sought the political support to make a career,” said Marcello Foa at the time of his hearing in the RAI-control Committee of the Italian Parliament on Wednesday. In August, Foa told the Internet portal “TIME ONLINE”, he became a candidate for the Executive chair of the state television and radio (RAI) in Italy, consider it to be a coincidence. “I’m standing outside of the political system. I would work for the freedom of the media within the RAI. Quality to decide and is not a party to books or cliques,” says Marcello Foa about his “Mission”, he wants to compete now.
The media Manager is now in charge in Switzerland, a regional newspaper publisher and Lectures at the University of Lugano, however, been longer in the conservative-populist atmosphere. He is friends with the Chairman of the radical right-wing “Lega”party, Matteo Salvini. His son works in Marcello’s Foas company. Matteo Salvini praised his friend as “someone who from the in Italy and around the world”. He was a “free man”, the detainment of journalists to work objectively and correctly, and to prescribe without a party.
Rights series closed
Salvini has noted in the Foa, even after the newspaper man from the Canton of Ticino had been rejected in a first vote by the end of July. For the required Two-thirds majority of the votes of the populist party “Forza Italia” of the media entrepreneur Silvio Berlusconi were missing. The objections in principle against Marcello Foa nothing, but wanted to drive up the price for his consent. So acted with Salvini and Berlusconi, that the advertising time for Berlusconi’s TV channels are not capped in the “Mediaset”group. In addition, Salvini’s Lega and Berlusconi’s Forza want to make a deal at the local level. The second start-up this Wednesday Marcello Foa had the necessary votes: the Left-and right-wing populists, Forza Italia, and the fascist “brothers of Italy” in the broadcasting Council raised a Foa into the office.
Pulling the strings behind the new RAI-chief: Matteo Salvini has the threads in the Hand
Rights Blog Entries
In the national conservative sheet, “Il Giornale”, owned by the media entrepreneur and right-wing populists Silvio Berlusconi, writes Foa a controversial Blog that has caused his opponent to the Plan, and also colleagues from the University of Lugano irritated. In the Blog Marcello Foa rants, for example, against the common currency, the Euro, which would be used by Germany to the South of Europe, and thus Italy. He often assumes the theses of right conspiracy theorists from Europe and the USA, which also can be found in the right Online portals, such as “Breitbart” or “Infowars”. “Breitbart and Infowars overdo it often, but talk to topics to be elsewhere concealed,” said Marcello Foa in the “TIME-LINE”Interview. All Foa railed against the so-called “mainstream media”, one of which is to the right-wing populist Definition of the RAI, by his future employer.
The Internet-diary of Marcello Foa: “The other Standards”
Unions protest
The state television that belongs to the Ministry of Finance, with its numerous television and radio channels as the most important Medium for the political formation of opinion in Italy and is one of the largest cultural establishments in the whole country. Of the market shares, the RAI ranks but in the meantime, just behind the “SkyItalia”-pay-TV from the British Murdoch Empire. On the third place Mediaset “of Silvio Berlusconi”. The social democratic Opposition and some media experts see an extremely critical that with the change in leadership at the RAI practically the entire television in Italy is in the hands of conservative to right-wing populist entrepreneurs and Directors. The two media-trade unions of Italy “FNSI and Usigrai” criticize the appointment of Marcello Foas as RAI-chief as a “death knell for the independence and self-management of the public broadcasting company”.
The RAI Studios in Rome: a guest in the talk show “Porta a Porta”: Beppe Grillo (li.), Founder of the 5-star movement, 2014
“Parasites” chase
Not only is Matteo Salvini’s Northern League, the populist “5 star movement” supports the new, yet rather unknown head at the top of the RAI. 5-star Chef Luigi Di Maio promises of Marcello Foa a drastic change, because so far, the RAI belongs to Di Maio hated “Establishment”. Di Maio said Foa will help to find the “parasites” that have taken root over the decades in the RAI. The RAI is a “cultural Revolution”. The co-founder of 5 star, Gianroberto Casaleggio, is one of the readers of Foas Blog in which the author to the joy of the populists alleged false reports from the Syria-denouncing war and the policy of Russian President Putin praises.
The readers of his blog, Marcello Foa 2016 recommended a story about satanic rituals, in which the then-US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton may have been involved. This turned out to be, of course, as a duck. His Blog entry the Foa sees today as a “mistake”, but in an Internet diary would eventually also apply less stringent journalistic Standards than in a classical Medium. The British newspaper “The Guardian” reported to be particularly critical about Marcello Foa. He was a “Euro-skeptics, against Immigration, against vaccinations, for Russia and against homosexuals,” wrote the Guardian. In his last Blog entry of 25. August about Marcello Foa makes a mockery of the fact that the French President will lay lightly on his alleged homosexuality openly and in a relationship with his former employee will give, indirectly, price. Emmanuel Macron, has become this summer’s favorite opponents of the populist government coalition in Rome.
A role model? Consultant? Einflüsterer? Marcello Foa hit the right-wing media entrepreneur Steve Bannon (archive image)
A Meeting with Steve Bannon
On 8. March Marcello Foa, the also gladly by the Russian Propaganda channel “RT” interview met, according to the report in a Swiss newspaper, Steve Bannon. The right-wing populist media consultant from the United States helped U.S. President Donald Trump on the election victory and now wants to organize for the right-wing populists in Europe, an electoral success in the European elections in the coming year. Foa was at the Meeting with Bannon not alone. With the match Lega-chief Salvini. In Italy it is speculated that perhaps already in March, the idea was born, to catapult Marcello Foa in the event of an electoral victory to the top of the RAI. Foa has no practical experience in TV or radio business. However, he sits in the Board of Directors of RAI, is part of the “Establishment” or even the “parasite” who wants to have identified a 5-star Chef Di Maio at the RAI.
As RAI-chief Foa is intended to provide especially the editorial and journalistic orientation of the state-owned company. In addition, he will share, as it was in the case of government change in Italy has been hitherto customary, the management staff of the station, with its 13000 employees. The parties, whether social Democrats or Conservatives, have so far ruled always in the RAI. The Supervisory boards are occupied by party proportional representation in the Parliament. The new populist majority in Parliament, this Chance, of course not.