Journalists from Italian news agency AGI are striking on Thursday and Friday against the possible sale of the agency to Lega MP Antonio Angelucci, arguing that selling to a right-wing senator who already owns several newspapers would risk media pluralism and be a blow to press freedom.
Angelucci, owner of several dailies (Libero, il Giornale and il Tempo), has allegedly offered €40 million to buy AGI.
The union has called for two days of strikes due to the absence of a “timely official response from the company on the agency’s future ownership structure”.
The agency, currently owned by the Eni group and in which the Ministry of Finance has a 4% stake, was already planning a “significant reduction in its workforce”, journalists reported.
“Over the years, Eni has shown itself to be a publisher capable of safeguarding employment levels and always guaranteeing the independence and autonomy of journalists, all elements that would be strongly at risk in the prospected scenario of sale to the Angelucci publishing group”, they added.
Eni has tried to calm the situation by claiming that it received a ‘spontaneous expression of interest’ from an interested party and clarifying that a preliminary discussion had taken place but that there were no negotiations.
Journalists believe that the country’s guarantee of media pluralism is at stake, and left-wing opposition parties – the Democratic Party (PD/S&D) and the 5-Star Movement – have come out in support.
“The hypothesis of selling the AGI news agency to a right-wing senator who already owns several newspapers is extremely serious”, said PD Secretary Elly Schlein.
“The press agency is a guarantee of third party status and therefore the purchase by the right-wing risks being a new blow to the freedom of the press in Italy (…) It is clear that this is a case of conflict of interest”, she added.
The members of the 5 Star Movement in the culture committee of the Chamber of Deputies also agree, calling it a ‘threat to the freedom of the press’.
“It is a threat to the independence of one of Italy’s biggest news agencies,” they declared, citing the European Union, which recently passed a new law to protect journalists and press freedom.
“The sale to Angelucci creates a disturbing situation for the state of relations between politics and information”, they added.
(Federica Pascale | Euractiv.it)
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Source: euractiv.com
