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With Italy's elections complete, does the domination of the media by the political elite distort the debate, and will the internet change things?

I find one side of the coin in Milan, at the heart of the estate where Berlusconi made his first serious money.

Milano 2 is a suburb of luxury flats, ponds and trees, restaurants and a hotel. And a TV station. His first in what grew into an unrivalled media empire.

I am , a short, well-tanned man with greying hair, a famous face on Italian TV since the 1950s.

He is a newsman more on the model of the old American news anchor than the British presenter. He鈥檚 the boss here. He doesn鈥檛 just read the main bulletin at seven in the evening. He decides what鈥檚 in it and all the other bulletins of TG4.

He鈥檚 editor-in-chief of the first TV station in .

Mr Fede is anything but impartial. He tells me not only that his friend Mr Berlusconi is a caring man, a man of the people, who has the answer to Italy鈥檚 problems but also that he brought the Cold War to an end.

Goldfishing

He is a fan, and the news reflects that. The day I am in the studio, the report on the opposition鈥檚 activities features just one politician talking in an interview.

But you don鈥檛 hear his words. He is, in TV parlance, goldfishing: you can see his lips move but only hear the reporter鈥檚 words. The report on Mr Berlusconi鈥檚 day has a rather long clip of him speaking.

After our interview, several uneasy Italian journalists suggest I must find it rather odd to discover a TV editor who supports one side so strongly.

Not really, I鈥榲e interviewed enough British newspaper editors for precisely the same reason: to get an intelligent informed, but partisan view.

That all broadcasters, even ones that don鈥檛 harvest a licence fee, are legally bound to be impartial in the UK, but newspapers are not, could be seen as a cultural quirk.

But it means that no-one in Italy seriously strives for objectivity.

Journalists are still organised in a guild, set up by Mussolini to control the press.

Before you are allowed to write a single article, you first have to have a sponsor within the industry, and then pass an exam sat in Rome, using an old-fashioned typewriter.

If the big organisation representing mainstream Italian journalists doesn鈥檛 even acknowledge the existence of the technology that has been dominant for the last 20 years, it鈥檚 not surprising that some see the internet as a way around the dead hand of an old elite.

Beppe the blogger

I go whose aim is to clear the current political class out of power.

Beppe Grillo鈥檚 online comments .

Beppe Grillo is, I guess, in his fifties, a mass of wavy curls more salt than pepper and a neat beard framing his engagingly impish face.

An irrepressible performer with political clout, he鈥檚 the organiser of a rally with a very direct message to Italy鈥檚 political elite. It was called It drew a crowd of 80,000.

What amounts to political censorship cost him his job in 1987. He is a standup comic, and was perhaps the most popular comedian on Italian TV.

But then he made a joke about the then ruling party, the Socialists, being corrupt. The show鈥檚 host walked off stage, the doorman wouldn鈥檛 look him in the eye and he never appeared on TV again, barred by both the state and Berlusconi鈥檚 private empire.

Even after a massive bribery scandal brought about the collapse of the Socialist party, he didn鈥檛 get his job back.

Not that it did him any harm. We are talking in his large study and sitting room taking up the whole bottom floor of his rather wonderful villa perched on a hillside overlooking the sea, just outside Genoa.

He fills any theatre he plays to and is one of the most influential alternative political voices in Italy. He takes on big companies and says things about politicians that leave him embroiled in dozens of court cases.

The first protest, or V-Day from its Italian name, demanded that the whole political elite, but particularly politicians with criminal convictions, should leave the political stage.

Media reform

Day Two demands a reform of the media.

鈥淲e are enraged, we have a feeling of hopelessness,鈥� he says.

鈥淲e have a parliament full of felons. We have a hit-parade of crooks in our parliament, making laws for Italy.

鈥淭he current political class has to go 鈥� en masse. Then we鈥檒l start again with young people 鈥� in their 20s and 30s. And then via the internet we鈥檒l start to create what you might call the virus of a new beginning from the bottom up.鈥�

He says the internet is key to this new beginning.

鈥淲e have seven television networks, and three newspapers that inform public opinion. And these are all in the hands of the banks, industrialists and politicians 鈥� and they all back each other up. And, without their say so, nothing happens.鈥�

He says Italians are in a comatose state, with the media in control.

鈥淎nd this is why our next 鈥楩-Off Day 2鈥� will focus on the media. We have to stop these millions of euros of public money being handed over to the newspapers; we鈥檝e got to get rid of this 鈥榞uild of journalists鈥�, and we have to get rid of a law that allows Berlusconi, whom today we also refer to as Asphalt Head, to own three TV networks and 10 newspapers, and then become prime minister.鈥�

I question how much impact this control of the media has.

After all I have just had a lively lunch with an Italian family arguing furiously about which way they should vote.

The newspapers are full of highly intellectual analysis, probably of a higher quality than in Britain. The party system means voices that would be excluded in Britain, from the hard left and hard right, are heard in Italy as well as the views of greens of various shades, libertarian socialists and of course the mainstream.

But this is not quite what he means. He is talking about something much more basic. The simple facts.

'Tittle tattle'

鈥淗ere in Italy we don鈥檛 know the whole truth. We know tittle tattle. What we鈥檙e told isn鈥檛 false, it鈥檚 verisimilitude.
If you have a criminal mind, you鈥檒l be successful in this country. If you don鈥檛, you won鈥檛. That鈥檚 the problem with this strange country.鈥�

He gives an example. A politician in the last government was closely linked, he claims, with a business over which his ministry has control. Now I am not going to get into specifics because I do not have the time to check out a claim that would be libellous if not true.

And Italian journalists are likewise scared off by the law and the willingness of politicians to use it. But there鈥檚 a difference.

In Britain, if such an allegation was made, it would be instantly checked out and, if true, it would dominate the headlines for days. I am not saying the media in Britain is perfect, indeed it may be blind to many things, but it is an effective check on serious financial scandal.

Given the litigious nature of Italian politicians, few people will put their heads above the parapet.

My most frustrating interview on this trip was with he has recently written on a most fascinating subject, the relationship between Italians and rules.

His sound, if basic, theory is that in Italy people at the top see only their privileges and people down the pyramid only their responsibilities.

I have no doubt he is a very brave man. He would have to be to have conducted the investigations into organised crime that he has presided over.

But he does not want to talk about the election, about Berlusconi, about how his theories affect political life in Italy.

This of course is his right, and he may have reasons I can鈥檛 guess at. But I suspect after a time it just becomes too much hassle, too wearying.

This worries me. Getting people to think through to conclusions themselves; by stirring up academic debate without spelling out the obvious is what dissidents have to do in dictatorships.

Clearly Italy is anything but, but sometimes you wouldn鈥檛 know it from people鈥檚 behaviour.

Big fish

Beppe Grillo, ever the standup comedian, mimes munching a large fish as he answers my question.

He says that, just like people who only have ever tasted farmed fish, Italians have forgotten the taste of real democracy.

鈥淲e no longer have a proper idea of what democracy is all about. We no longer have proper freedoms. We know nothing about anything.

鈥淚鈥檇 say to you that if you know of British companies that want to come here, they can come 鈥� because things are simple here. They can submit false accounts, do insider-trading and the like. The problem with this country is that we don鈥檛 know the whole truth.鈥�

Back at his computer, Beppe Grillo shows me his plans for V2 Day on his blog.

People can add their avatars to the virtual protest and a bunch of cartoon characters march across the screen to tell, not the politicians this time, but the media to get lost.

Are they right? Can they win?

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