'Disgrace' not journalism says De Luca (4)

(ANSA) - Naples, February 19 - Campania Governor Vincenzo De Luca on Monday said a report on alleged waste trafficking by Web news site Fanpage that prompted his son Roberto to quit as Salerno budget councillor was a "disgrace" and had been trumped up to hurt his party ahead of the March 4 general election. De Luca, a senior figure in the ruling centre-left Democratic Party (PD), said: "This isn't journalism, it's a national disgrace".
    "In these hours," he said, "we are witnessing a campaign of media and pseudo-journalistic aggression against us on the eve of a delicate electoral campaign, a Camorra mafia-like and Fascist thug-like operation starting with waste management." A PD supporter slapped a Fanpage reporter at the press conference called by Roberto De Luca on Sunday, sparking condemnation from other parties, with the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) in the lead.
    De Luca Sr said that Free and Equal (LeU) leader Pietro Grasso's solidarity with Fanpage reporter Gaia Bozza and his criticism of "an ugly climate of tension that does no one any good" were words "to be ashamed of".