“Meloni occupies Rai”, but it is fake news. The fool of the Republic

Here we go again. Repubblica thunders against the information from Rai and in particular against the news from the main public service network: «Tg1 is everything for Meloni: in December Schlein passed out and just 30 seconds for Pd. Only Conte speaks for the opposition”, title of the article published in yesterday’s edition. In short, if that were the case, we would be facing tele-Meloni… But are we sure that the data says what Repubblica claims? The piece cites the conclusions of the Pavia Observatory, in particular the monthly monitoring of political pluralism on Rai networks. And according to the newspaper run by Maurizio Molinari, the opposition, or rather the Democratic Party, disappeared from public service networks. «Secretary Elly Schlein never speaks directly – not even by mistake – about news from the main network (…). While in the same period the M5S leader speaks 24 times”, reads the article. Too bad the data says otherwise.

From the same document from the Pavia Observatory relating to the period from December 1 to 31, 2023, it appears that within Tg1 the Democrat’s secretary was the most exposed leader, more than Giorgia Meloni (and also the president Sergio Mattarella…). In short, quite the opposite. Data confirmed by the Agcom report: «Political-institutional pluralism on television December 1-31, 2023». Let’s start with the parties. Also within Tg1, the speaking time of members of the Democratic Party is practically similar to that of the Fratelli d’Italia: 17.3 percent against 19.8. The 5 Star Movement is slightly smaller: 15.38 percent. If there were still any doubts, there is the “ranking” of the presence of institutional and political issues in Rai1 news that hits the nail on the head. In fourth place in speaking time is Conte with 6:57 minutes. Let’s go to the podium. Prime Minister Meloni is only third with 7:14 minutes, 6.12 percent of the total. Place of honor for the head of state: Mattarella on Tg1 last December spoke for 8 minutes and 45 seconds. Who is in first place? Needless to say, it was the “censored” Schlein who spoke to the Italians for 11:14 minutes, longer than anyone else.

The icing on the afternoon’s cake came Rai’s clarification: «In reference to the article published on Repubblica.it, about data from the Pavia Observatory regarding the presence of political leaders in TG1 in the month of December, Rai specifies that he received a letter from Observatory where it is highlighted that “due to a coding error in our database, which we corrected, the secretary of the Democratic Party, Elly Schlein, was not included in the previous report”. The Observatory therefore apologizes to Rai and the Parliamentary Supervisory Committee for the error and the media coverage it caused.” Specifically, the complete data for the month of December records for Secretary Schlein a “total presence” on TG1 of 10 minutes , 8 minutes on TG2, 2 and 6 minutes on TG3. More globally, still according to the Pavia Observatory «in the quarter June-December 2023, the percentage of time spent on the Government’s voice, equal to 25.5% of the total , is slightly lower than the average percentage of voice time recorded for the Executive in previous legislatures, placed at around 30%”.