An Investigative Journalist

Where I am often to be found, which also happens to be the HQ of one of Italy’s major newspapers, I often bump into a nice chap who happens to be a form of investigative journalist.

The last time I met this guy, we chatted about an article he had written on the misappropriation of some EC funds, which had been most probably funneled into the funds of a few of Italy’s political parties. He told me how he needed to be a little careful while gathering information for his articles, as apparently, digging too deeply into the affairs of the powerful and dodgy could be dangerous. That’s not only ‘bye, bye career’ dangerous, but, possibly ‘bye, bye, full stop’ dangerous.

I remember another time I met this guy and I was on about my blog. I asked him if he had a blog too. His reply was in the negative, and when I enquired why, his reply gave me the impression that doing so may not be all that safe. I imagine he was referring to running a blog about the subjects he often writes about, as I don’t imagine a wine blog stepping on too many toes.

Now that the B man is back, it will be interesting to see if press freedom sinks back down to the lows it hit during his last government. And it will be curious to see whether his government’s ‘reforms’ attempt to silence that noisy, but annoying, bunch of pretend journalists, in other words – us bloggers. Prodi had a go, and failed, but Silvio is much more ‘furbo‘ than old Prodi, so who knows what may be around the corner…