Senate Speaker Pietro Grasso on
Wednesday called for a "satisfactory" solution to a dispute
pitting Italian news agencies against the government over a new
Europe-wide tender for news services, replacing traditional
funding via conventions.
"There has been tension between news agencies and the
government...a tension that led to a general strike by agencies
on Saturday," Grasso said.
"It is necessary to find a satisfactory solution".
All of Italy's news agencies, including ANSA, struck for 24
hours from six o'clock a.m. Saturday, in the first such action,
to protest Sports and Media Minister Luca Lotti's refusal to
discuss the agencies' demand to pull the tender, which they say
threatens media pluralism and independence, as well as their
very existence.
Lotti recently said there would be two tenders for news
services, one for the public administration and the other for
the foreign ministry.
Grasso went on to say that "it is necessary to find a
solution that safeguards employment levels, pluralism, and
which, at the same time, reorganises this sector; I hope that
the necessary talks between the sides lead to shared solutions,
satisfactory for all".
He also addressed the problem of low journalists' pay, saying
they should be paid enough to "ensure a decent standard of
living".
Grasso said 40% of the more than 35,000 journalists active in
Italy, most of them under 35, "produce annual income lower than
5,000 euros.
"If they earn so little it means that the issue of
precariousness and the dignity of the profession imposes
reflections and actions that can no longer be put off".
All journalists, Grasso added, should be enabled to be "free
and independent".
Grasso said there had been a growing "crisis" in the media
world over the last few years but the "short-term" response from
Italian media groups, privileging "quantity over quality", had
been wrong.
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