Although the summer we are experiencing is one of the mildest, there is no shortage of highlights. Metaphorically, of course. Incredible gaffes, crazy bullshit, sensational own goals: they are heard every day. Politicians are the protagonists but they are not the only ones: even intellectuals are not joking and the latest editorial written by Ernesto Galli della Loggia in the "Corriere della Sera" on "Elite poisoned, owls and rosiconi" is a full blown road trip. Even if done with elegance.
In the last few days of nonsense, the opposition of the right and left have not spared it. What about the disturbing justification of Iraqi terrorism of the grillino Di Battista? A crazy sunstroke which, however, raises a doubt: is Di Battista's blunder more serious than that of his constituents who sent him to Parliament, with all the taxpayers' money, to talk nonsense like that? Doubt is legitimate, but will Di Battista's demented words be enough to open the eyes of many Italians in good faith but decidedly naive who voted for him and for Grillo?
Infinitely less serious but equally hilarious is the controversy raised by the secretary of the League on the engagement of the new coach of the Italian national football team, Antonio Conte. “Four million a year for the coach? What a shame ” Matteo Salvini arises on twitter who, however, as is his custom, shoots zero without getting information and artfully distorting reality. We can discuss and it is certainly right to do so on the abysmal distance that runs between the salary of a national coach and that of a worker who doesn't make ends meet, but the rule of supply and demand that prevails in the world of football and show is not what circulates in the factory. Capello, who is the coach of the Russian national team, earns 9 million euros a year and nobody says anything. All this may arouse indignation but falsehoods and demagoguery do not help. It cannot be implied, as Salvini subtly does, that Conte's salary is unique and that Italian taxpayers pay it, because everyone knows that this is not the case. The Italian Football Federation gives Conte exactly what it gave to his predecessor, Cesare Prandelli, the rest is provided by the private sponsor, the German Puma. Where is the scandal?
Beyond the incredible outbursts (of sanity) of Di Battista and Salvini, the biggest sunstroke however is the one that the Welfare Minister, Giuliano Poletti, stumbled upon. Not only because he is a minister and balanced words are expected from him, but because he slipped one after the other on pensions in the interview he gave to Corriere della Sera on Sunday. The headquarters of the Milanese newspaper is not irrelevant. Only a few days earlier, Senator Pietro Ichino had masterfully explained in the same columns that, after the last safeguard interventions, there is no longer a single exodus. But Poletti carries on like a buldozer and promises a pension slide for those on layoffs, which is something very different from the category of redundancies. One would understand the granting of unemployment benefits for layoffs who cannot find work, but why give away pensions to those who are not yet entitled to them? Then, from demagoguery to demagoguery, Poletti takes advantage of it to evoke a possible punitive intervention against what he calls the golden pensions, which are equivalent to 3.500 euros a month. However, he forgets to say that the extraordinary contribution to be paid by the highest pensions is already in force and it was the turn of his predecessor, the former minister Enrico Giovannini, to remind him of it. Despite this collection of gaffes, perhaps Minister Poletti will have the cheek to promise a policy in favor of the middle class in the next electoral campaign. Come on, minister, document yourself better and don't make fun of us.
However, it also deserves a mention in the anthology of sunstrokes a refined intellectual of the caliber of Ernesto Galli della Loggia who, intervening in the typically mid-August controversy on political power and the elites, explains why the united interests of the various ruling groups oppose Renzi and his reforms but spares the press with a surprising reason to say the least. Journalists – argues Galli della Loggia – are a bit colorblind and see more black than white, but it is right that this is the case because they are just doing their job. But who said that being prejudicial against is being a journalist in the most professional way? It is one thing to give no discounts to anyone and always keep high the banner of independent judgment towards any government and quite another thing to be prejudicially critical of any act of the government. If we took this second criterion for granted, the newspapers would lose what is most important in the exercise of their profession and that is the ability to distinguish and not to put everyone on the same level. But what kind of journalism is the one that equates the Berlusconi government, the Monti government, the Letta government and the Renzi government?
Good journalism is the one that knows how to distinguish and that makes fleas to everyone without reverential fears, but which also has the courage to recognize a government - whatever it may be - its merits if sometimes it manages to do something good. The function of the media is not to feed the vanity of a few signatures but to provide correct information and to put readers in a position to understand what is happening. The preconceived opposition, on the other hand, is pure indifference or, if you like, conformism of anticonformism, pace Professor Galli della Loggia who naturally takes great care not to suggest the same method and the same color-blind attitude towards the economic and financial power of which even the newspaper in which he writes is expression.
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