Béatrice Schonberg and the 52 UMP deputies

Weekend journalist is married to government minister. Journalist is suspended. 52 deputies belonging to the party of government support her. The journalists' union says to the deputies, bugger off, this isn't your fight. Excellent reply. I must learn more about the Société des Journalistes.

Technorati Tags: france+televisions,, beatrice, schonberg,, france, 2,, societe, des, journalistes,, unions,, professionalism

Beppe Grillo's Blog

In the same week that two key nominations are made "in full autonomy", according to Petruccioli, "nomine politiche", according to La Russa, Beppe Grillo writes about another route to power in Rai: nepotism.

Technorati Tags: grillo, riotta, lottizzazione, nepotism, appointments

Irish broadcasting reform - consultation online

The Irish government launches an online consultation exercise
on reform of broadcasting legislation. More to follow on the details of the reform...

Technorati Tags: rte, ireland, legislation, e-democracy

Radicals, Rai

Daniele Cappezzone, secretary of the Italian radicals last week broke the news of a list of names for the positions in rai's news bulletins. Now, he gives us a very entertaining schematic of how politicians value these posts. It's incredibly detailed, and, if true to the facts, would show an astonishing level of interest and interference in Rai. (The title of the second article is a reference to the Cencelli manual, an informal rule which governed the allocation of posts in the cabinet in proportion to their importance and each party's vote share).

Technorati Tags: cappezzone, rai, lottizzazione, radicali

New resources

I'm as happy as a pig in mud trawling through the EUI library for new books for my research. Have found that the library has an excellent reference guide for the French Media, called MédiaSIG - this should be useful for calculating rates of turnover in France Télévisions and seeing whether they follow what might be termed a 'political logic'.

Technorati Tags: France+Télévisions, EUI, guides, turnover

List of Rai nominees found circulating in Parliament.

Awful, unsurprising.

Technorati Tags: lottizzazione, rai, riotta, ruffini

Late-summer Games kick-off at Rai

Fighting over Rai's future direction has increased in tempo over the past few days. There are two levels: first, the administrative council, where the Treasury's representative, Angelo Maria Petroni, has been subject to some pressure to resign. Il Giornale talks of 'the operation to take-over Rai', and quotes Sandro Curzi, left-wing member of the Council. It's unclear however whether this 'take-over' has deep roots: Romano Prodi claims that, if the left has a plan for Rai, he doesn't know about it, and quips that, in any event, the Lebanese problem is easier to solve than the problem of Rai.

The second level is the executive level. Director-General Claudio Cappon must make a series of nominations to key posts in Rai. The first batch of nominations will be voted on by the Council of Administration meeting on September 6th; it will be important to see whether Cappon's nominations are all approved, and if so, by what majorities.

Technorati Tags: Rai, Cappon, Curzi, Petroni, Prodi