The ridiculous enormity of the past weeks melts away in the autumn of serious things. The summer “gossip”, which led to the necessary resignation of the Minister of Culture, gives way to the attentive glances of European commissioners and bureaucrats on our public accounts, in view of a maneuver that is announced in the name of prudence, savings, cuts, accompanied by the proposal of a “double” Marshall Plan to save Europe, signed by none other than Mario Draghi.

With a very rapid change of direction and tone, the Sangiuliano case, which for weeks has been on the front pages of newspapers and news, and which even a slalom professional like Giorgia Meloni could not avoid, seems to be archived. “Mistakes are not allowed” when you make history, she had said: but also when you make a financial maneuver and have the highest debt in Europe.

Sangiuliano and the trashy ending

However, beyond the stories of the heart and those of armchairs that we have dealt with and, perhaps, will continue to deal with following the thread of new revelations, a few more words on the affair must be spent. Not on the Boccia-Sangiuliano affair, now buried with the resignation as minister, but on the paths “à la Sangiuliano”, which only in a declining society can seem acceptable and compatible with the democratic values ​​that we boast of defending around the world. The career of the former minister was largely summarized in the days of his resignation. For those who missed the previous episodes, a quick consultation with the search engines will be enough to reconnect the threads of a path that, from the beginning, is inextricably linked to belonging to a political camp – that of the post-fascist right -, which has gradually declined by building preferential relationships with various political referents of the center-right. Is everything okay? Is everything in order? Can a political activist who has been a legitimate partisan since his youth be a public service journalist, direct news programs having political contacts over whom he should monitor, and who instead appoint him because of their proximity? It will be said – with good reason – that this is not the only case, indeed, and that the issue does not only concern the right. It is true. However, it is equally true that such a blatant case, and made completely explicit by the trashy ending of his political parable, we did not even remember in our country, which has known conflicts of interest, and has even invented new ones. A brief review with a few highlighted frames can perhaps help to understand the issue.

The scoop on the house in Monte Carlo

In 2001 Sangiuliano ran for parliament with the center-right without being elected, eight years later he became deputy director of the most Berlusconi-like of news programs, the one directed by Augusto Minzolini, and then it was in the “Salvini League” quota that he became director of Tg2, a position he held until becoming a minister in the Meloni government. Following a resignation that was not particularly honorable, he would naturally like to return to his post, at Rai. In that company where, as a minister and not as a journalist, he broke the news the other evening. The interview on Tg1 in which he revealed that he had “an emotional relationship” with Maria Rosaria Boccia was given to the director of the same news program, Gianmarco Chiocci. A reporter of great ability, he too has always been close to the right, but who has never stopped doing this job to get involved in politics. It was he, creating a real scoop, who discover the story of the house in Monte Carlo that passed from the coffers of the post-fascist right to the availability of some relatives of Fini’s wife.

In the biography of Sangiuliano published by Wikipedia, it is written that, during his tenure at Minzolini’s TG1, “he was the director of the reports on the house in Monte Carlo with which Gianfranco Fini, then at odds with the leadership of the PdL, was questioned for a long time”. Chiocci’s scoop remains for what it was, a real scoop, and in no way does it take away from the value of a piece of news that it was published by the newspaper owned by Berlusconi, who had by then reached a public political war with the then President of the Chamber Fini. At that juncture, after Chiocci’s scoop and Sangiuliano’s reports, the one who lost all his battles was the man who had put an end to the fascist roots of the national right, displeasing many who still populate parliament today under the aegis of the Brothers of Italy, and the politician who had become Berlusconi’s main opponent, despite being his first ally. He lost them for his mistakes, but it is shocking to see the career trajectory of someone who reported those mistakes for the national public service, in the Berlusconi era, to then become a supporter of Salvini, to then return to the fold of the right with Giorgia Meloni. Everything in the light of day, everything publicly claimed.

In short, and finally, today we are still talking about his resignation. It would be nice, tomorrow, to talk about the relationship between political and journalistic careers, especially in public service, and that the Sangiuliano case could serve to write rules on how to exit, re-enter, succeed and return to Rai, putting on and taking off the militant’s shirt.

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