The discouraging panorama of the Italian television religious information

The seventh report about religious confessions on television presented in Rome by ‘Critica Liberale’. Announcement of the establishment of a parliamentary Intergroup on laity

Da sinistra, Ilaria Valenzi, Ezio Marzo, Luca Pastorino, Andrea Maestri

Rome (NEV), December 21, 2018 – The results of the VII report on the presence of the various religious confessions on television and the VIII report on their presence in the News programs, offer a “discouraging” panorama. This is what Enzo Marzo, director of  the magazine ‘Critica Liberale’, expressed in the press conference held on December 18, in Rome in the press room of the Chamber of Deputies, to present the two researches.

The most striking fact of the serious lack of pluralism in public information is the figure of the national news program TG1, which, in the 2016/17 year taken into consideration by the report, dedicated the 98.93% of its religious information to the Catholic Church. “It is a fact registered also the previous year: all confessions apart the Catholic one reached 1%; not to mention the information about Muslims, which is often to be found only in the crime news”, Marzo said.

The press conference was also an opportunity to announce the establishment of a parliamentary Intergroup on laity, presented by MP Luca Pastorino and by the lawyer Andrea Maestri.

“The research data offer much food for thought about the lack of pluralism in the Italian television information”, said lawyer Ilaria Valenzi, legal adviser of the Evangelical Churches Commission for the Relations with the State (CCERS), speaking at the press conference. “Certainly – continued Valenzi – the establishment of a parliamentary intergroup on laity is an important initiative. We should, however, question ourselves to redefine the concept of secularism in the light of a plural and multi-faith society, as Italy is today”.