This Friday, Italy plunged into an authentic ‘information blackout’ due to a journalists’ strike with which they have demanded better working conditions and their defense against the digitalization of a sector in crisis.
The protest, of a magnitude unprecedented in the last 20 years, has been promoted until tomorrow by the National Federation of the Italian Press (FNSI) and has achieved broad support, noticeable by an almost unanimous silence in the media throughout the day.”
“Journalists’ strike. Programming in reduced mode,” reads the banner of public television RAI, while documentaries and archive reports are repeated on the screen.
The protest has frozen the digital portals of almost all Italian newspapers, such as ‘La Repubblica’, ‘Il Corriere della Sera’ or ‘La Stampa’, as well as the flow of the main agencies such as Ansa or Agi, and has left the editorial offices at a minimum, which in turn will empty the kiosks of paper newspapers tomorrow.
It has even affected the visit that Pope Leo XIV is carrying out this Friday to Istanbul, as the Italian journalists accompanying him have refused to write or report on the trip.
In Italy, whoever wanted to take a look at the information today had no choice but to turn to social networks.
The FNSI has denounced that the current journalistic agreement in Italy has not been renewed in the last decade despite the fact that this profession represents “a fundamental pillar in democratic life.”
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“In these 10 years the purchasing power and salaries of journalists have been eroded by inflation, by almost 20% according to the National Institute of Statistics. We ask for an increase in line with that of other collective agreements,” they claim.
Numerous threats
But in the background is a sector shaken in recent years by a technological revolution that it has failed to take advantage of.
“Publishers have not embraced the opportunities in terms of income from the digital transformation and, faced with the crisis of traditional media, they have preferred to cut the price of work,” says the FNSI in its note, published digitally and frequently read on radio stations and televisions.
The press, the federation points out, faces numerous threats: the first is precariousness, since in recent years the number of journalists on the payroll, hired, has been drastically reduced while the “exploitation” of collaborators “without rights” has grown unchecked.
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But another dark cloud on the horizon comes from technology itself: “We ask for a new agreement that addresses the new digital professions, regulating the use of Artificial Intelligence and achieving balanced remuneration for content on the internet.”
The journalists’ protest has been answered by the other side of the medal, the Italian Federation of Newspaper Editors (FIEG), ensuring that in the last decade they have made “enormous investments” in favor of the freedom and quality of information.
“In a dramatic context in which companies have recorded a loss in income, it has been possible to avoid layoffs through sector standards,” alleges the editors’ union, critical of the “unfair competition” from colossi such as Google or Meta.
This unusual media strike will last until Saturday morning and has coincided with another in all sectors – of much lesser impact – called by several minority unions against the Budgets of Giorgia Meloni’s Government and defense spending.