Rome Mayor Ignazio Marino on
Thursday seemed unperturbed by a New York Times article on the
'degradation' in the city, preferring to play up the 'virtues'
of the report instead.
"The title is very nice, I liked it a lot," Marino said in
reference to the report headlined 'A virtuous mayor versus
Rome's vice' appearing on the front page of the print edition of
the International New York Times.
He also took issue with ANSA for allegedly mistranslating
the title in its first dispatch.
However, the agency subsequently clarified that the
confusion was due to the fact that the same article had appeared
under three different headlines on three different platforms.
It appeared in the New York edition of the paper with the
title 'The Mayor's Honest, but Is That Enough to Halt the
Eternal City's Decline?', and on the paper's website as 'Romans
Put Little Faith in Mayor as Their Ancient City Degrades'.
Marino dismissed the charge implicit in this last title as
"the evaluation of a handful of journalists".
The article lists the many problems facing the Eternal City
and its residents, from unkempt public parks to strikes by
public transport workers and the so-called Mafia Capitale
investigation into alleged infiltration by criminal
organisations into contracts in the city.
"I was surgically aggressive from the very beginning,"
Marino, a heart surgeon by profession, is quoted as saying.
"I don't give a damn about what the political agreements
were before I arrived," he added.
"The most important thing to me is to run the city in an
honest and transparent way," Marino said.
The New York Times reports that many Rome residents and
commentators credit the mayor for his honesty, but registers
frustration that he is not getting more done.
"Marino is a Martian in Rome, which is fascinating, but
tiring," Marco Damilano, a political commentator and city
resident, told the paper.
"Rome is in ruins. If he starts acting, he and the city can
come out of this stronger," he said.
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