The UK press helped bring down the Italian prime minister, says nicholas farrell in Rome
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The ignorance and prejudice shown by British journalists when they write about this magnificent country have angered me ever since I moved to Italy in 1998. And their knee-jerk demonisation of Silvio Berlusconi during the general election, which he lost by a whisker, was a disgrace.
They just don't get Italy. Nor, as a result, do they get Berlusconi. All the British papers (Times, Guardian, Financial Times, Economist, Spectator, Daily Telegraph) defined him as a vulgar failure who had to go.
Even the ludicrous Romano Prodi, they said, would do a better job. They swallowed hook, line and sinker the false propaganda of the regime that controls not just the media but the culture in Italy - not Berlusconi, but the Left.
He was "the Devil" and "a toxic threat" to democracy in Europe (Guardian) who had
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| When the Times and Economist write about Italy it becomes front-page news here |
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entered politics in 1994 "only to avoid prison" (Spectator) and "seems deranged, bordering on megalomania" (Daily Telegraph) and is "so appalling, and so vulgar" (Times) that "Basta, time for Italy to sack Berlusconi" (Economist).
Italians take seriously what the foreign press writes about them. When the Times and Economist write about Italy - especially if it's critical of Berlusconi - it becomes front-page news here.
So, grazie, British journalists, grazie mille. You did your bit to bring down Il Cavaliere (as we call him) and give Mortadella (Prodi) his Pyrrhic victory.
The British press failed to understand two crucial things:
First, yes, Berlusconi does own half the television stations here (not "90 per cent", as the Guardian claimed) but he does not control them, as anyone who bothers to watch a bit of Italian TV quickly realises.
In fact, his media empire has done Italy a great service, because it broke the Soviet-style state monopoly of broadcasting. 
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