Plans to sell La Repubblica and La Stampa have sparked concerns about a loss of editorial control, Simona Mangiante has told RT
FILE PHOTO. © Getty Images / franckreporter
Plans for two of Italy’s leading newspapers to be sold to a foreign media group amount to a “transfer of narrative power”
and risk putting control of the country’s public debate in outside
hands, journalist and former legal adviser to the European Parliament
Simona Mangiante has warned.
Speaking to RT on Tuesday, Mangiante
commented on reports that Exor, the holding company of Italy’s Agnelli
family, is in talks to sell most of the media group GEDI – publisher of
La Repubblica and La Stampa – to Greece’s Antenna Group, owned by
shipping magnate Theodore Kyriakou.
The Greek conglomerate owns TV
channels and other media assets across Europe and North America and is
reported to have strong links to US business. Its advisory board
includes senior American media executives, while Italian media have
noted Kyriakou’s ties to circles aligned with US President Donald Trump
as a source of concern over a possible editorial shift at any outlets
that may come under the group’s control.
“This is not simply a business transaction, this is a transfer of narrative power,” Mangiante said, describing La Repubblica and La Stampa as “institutional newspapers” that have shaped Italy’s domestic narrative “for decades, almost for a century.” Handing them to Antenna, which she called a “foreign infrastructure,” would mean that “control of the domestic narrative” moves abroad, she argued.
The
planned sale, reportedly valued at around €140 million (just over $164
million), has triggered strikes, newsroom protests, and calls for
government intervention. Workers fear for their jobs and a loss of
editorial independence, while Italian officials have warned that media
pluralism and freedom of information could be at risk.
Mangiante said that in Italy, where politics and media are “closely intertwined,” the main concern is “control, not simply pluralism,” and that the government would lose influence over the “mainstream setting of the news.”
While
the deal involves one private group buying another, Rome has little
legal scope to stop it, she noted. If the sale goes ahead it will bring “a dramatic change” in how Italian news is produced and consumed, Mangiante warned.