Calling the Shots

The saga of Silvio Berlusconi and his teenaged babes—-the 72-year-old prime minister apparently likes to party with 18-year-olds--is not just another story of Italian excess. Berlusconi’s soap opera illustrates what happens when one man overwhelms the airwaves, plays to the camera without much challenge and has big newspapers ready to color any public discourse.

News is just a handy political lever for this billionaire premier.

The latest press obsession with Berlusconi is his alleged dalliance with a particular teen beauty named Noemi Letizia. It is an telling episode in which the media magnate, once again, has been able to push back any full-court press challenge.

Berlusconi rose to power in large part because of his control of the Italian media market. He owns Mediaset, a company built on three national television channels. His brother owns and operates Il Giornale, a national right-wing paper. His wife Veronica Lario—-the other-woman when a married Berlusconi pursued her decades ago and who has been bleating to the press about suspected infidelities-—is listed as an owner of the influential Il Foglio daily.

Berlusconi also owns Mondadori Editore, the biggest publishing house in Italy which produces Panorama, a popular news magazine. He has holdings in the cinema, insurance and banking sectors. Over the years, there have been investigations of Berlusconi's business deals and allegations of corruption. The man who boasts about his political clout has never been convicted of any crime.

Large dailies—such as La Repubblica—are often critical of Berlusconi but such rebukes are no match for his media army. It is clear, at least when following daily news accounts, that some in the journalism ranks are not immune to basic realities in this media market.

Editors are appointed amid a raging political dynamic. Pressure comes in all sorts of ways in Italy. No one undertakes rigorous content analyses here but, since his party rose to power again last year, Berlusconi’s top political considerations have noticeably garnered front-page headlines.

Immigrants are routinely portrayed as a scourge, a policy embraced by Italy’s rightwing parties. Discussion of economic woes are explained as part of a global tremor—which means no one in this government can be tagged with blame. Hard questions are rarely followed by hard investigations.

The deadly earthquake in L’Aquila in April is a case in point. The disaster never lacked coverage in the first terrible days. What no station or paper has done since is probe why the devastation was so vast.

Which contractors built the modern buildings that tumbled, what building standards were followed, which firms had political or Mafia connections -- those questions have yet to be taken up in the journalistic quarter.

Berlusconi’s undue influence—in both television and print—-was noted with some alarm in 2004 by press watchdogs such as Freedom House, Reporters Without Borders and the International Federation of Journalists. Berlusconi then and now sees no conflict in his press kingdom and certainly no shame.

Instead, he paints himself, when challenged with reasonable questions, as a victim of the press.

When reports circulated last month that the prime minister was giving gifts and much attention to 18-year-old girl Letizia, Berlusconi bristled. His wife was the source of the initial reports and Berlusconi quickly labeled the wifely outrage a political plot. Her remarks were not sparked by spousal revenge, he said. The political left had goaded his wife, he said, to such a terrible political betrayal.

When reports circulated over the weekend that the prime minister had a New Year’s Eve party a few years ago with topless young women—-Letizia was said to be among the crowd but she attended clothed—-Berlusconi again played himself a victim.

His privacy and a private party at his villa for friends and other politicians was breached, Berlusconi argued. A freelance photographer who had perched outside his villa had taken photos that were beyond the bounds of decency, he charged.

Well, perhaps. But it turns out that photos from the same party by the same freelancer had already been published, two years earlier, in Oggi magazine. Sixteen photos ran then.

Now the photographer, realizing the importance of Letizia and about three dozen other young women at the party, was trying to cash in on the 400+ prints he had taken that night and still had in his files.

The photographer lost out, however, as did the public that might have wanted to know more about what the prime minister was up to at that party.

A Roman judge sided with Berlusconi that the photographer with a long lens and a good sense of timing was taking unfair advantage of a public official who was giving a party with lots of other public officials in attendance. That is justice, Italian-style.

Berlusconi’s interest in young women, and Letizia in particular, may be lamentable, but most likely not a crime. There is no claim or evidence that the old man was physically aggressive. It appears, at least from most published reports, that he just craved their wide-eyed adulation. Press reports have quoted him as cooing at Letizia: "What an angel smile you have."

Young women enthralled with Berlusconi may be naive but they are also likely calculating. Letizia fits the bill. She was quoted as saying she hoped the big man could make her a TV starlet or, gulp, even a senator. So far, one film director had reportedly offered her a role in a movie.

A far more disturbing consideration in this mess is Berlusconi’s hold on the media and how that translates into power in Italy. Berlusconi is not shy about pointing out his personal grip on news and culture. He recently told a French TV reporter: “I am 90 percent of the media in Italy.”

No truer, or sadder, words can be said about this press circus.