Eugenio Scalfari: “Journalists are people who tell people what happened”

In the early 1980s, at the opening of the Journalism School, I heard him say this about the essence of journalism. Country. With aristocratic demeanor, still young, with a beard that makes him look like a man Marcello Mastrioanni when he got older, he explained to aspiring journalists and those of us there that “journalists are people who tell people what happens to people.”

His newspaper told people what had happened, of course, but he also told what Scalfari thought about what was happening in Italy and around the world, because His personal editorials, which were almost always published on the first page, made a tremendous impression in Italy.

Almost three decades after appearing in front of business students, Scalfari was at the University of Turin, where he felt happy, journalism and whatever. On this occasion, he said “il giornalismo e un mestiere rawle” in his speech in Turin, forced by current events already governed by the threads of primitive networks. That’s what I was going to ask the teacher when the following news from Germany hit my cell phone: “German professors announced the end of paper journalism in 2018,” so I told Scalfari about his prediction. Sitting in the chair, where he is still expressing his opinions and becoming interested in the informative feeds he uses to gauge what’s going on, he sits in the chair and points to his watch, asking me: “Does this news tell the exact time of that event? is it going to happen?”

According to all evidence, he died of old age four years after German scientists’ predictions about the end of the age of paper newspapers failed. Its presence continues, and there are shelves all over the world that preserve not only the digital but also the written expression of the outcome of what thousands of followers of Scalfari’s trade write, thus keeping the newspaper news beyond the emergency networks. He was proud of the newspaper website he created, but the story didn’t make him a fan of what seemed the only future.

He was a very popular writer in Italy. He was feared for his influence as a journalist. but at that time he already did not believe his most famous quote, because now the journalist said that “not only does he write about people, but cruelty manifests itself in the profession.” It was journalism, too, “brutal business.” According to him, it was no longer just necessary to describe how the characters were, but to strip them, “and that’s cruel because people don’t like to undress.” It was even said that it was once the news that the man bit the dog, not the other way around, because “men no longer like to be told when they bite a dog; This is cruelty.”

The private life of the characters was sacred to him., and he felt that disrespect was now the order of the day. When it comes to the survival of journalism (especially paper journalism) that concerns fortune-tellers more than Scalfari himself, he used a quote from José Zorrilla: “The dead you have killed are in good health…”. I asked if the newspapers whose ending was announced were still healthy. And he answered me, running his hands through his thick hair with clenched hands, careful fingers: “I can tell they are not in good health, but they are still a great reference point. It is necessary to give them more credibility, to ensure that the brand attracts the public through new technologies. Nothing else can be done and naturally this will lead to a massive restructuring of companies.”

At the end of our meeting, he wanted to accompany me until the exit. In order not to stumble upon those who came and went to set out, he said: via disaster (Continuing), perhaps it can be interpreted as what actually happens in business, He paved the way for a job where he was a coach and he is also a very good auctioneer.