Let’s distinguish between news and useless polemics

Dear Ignatius,
These are assessments that I myself am making these days because I notice that these topics are dominant in all the newspapers. I do not believe that we should not pay attention to what happens on a global level, but that information regarding foreign policy should not take precedence over internal affairs, thus translating all this into an attitude of neglect towards what happens within our borders and that involves us closely. However, I must make a necessary clarification: in a system like the current one, strongly globalized, it is difficult to distinguish what concerns us from what does not concern us. Perhaps it is not always possible to make a selection. The fate of peoples, in fact, is linked by subtle and inextricable plots. Can we perhaps say that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, whose theater is the heart of our Europe, does not produce direct effects on our economies and not only on these? Even the war between Israel and Hamas has repercussions on our societies, on our way of life, on our security. Let us think of the increase in episodes of violence against Jews, of the demonstrations that in recent months have inflamed our streets and squares, of the growth of knife attacks that are taking place more or less daily in Germany, France, England and whose perpetrators declare they are acting in the name of Allah and in defense of the Palestinian people. Even the proscription lists drawn up by the new Communist Party are the reflection of an incandescent international situation. Those who have written them and published them on the web declare hatred towards the Italian government, towards entrepreneurs, politicians, intellectuals, journalists accused of being enemies of the Palestinians and friends of the Zionists.

In short, dear Ignazio, we write about foreign affairs because what happens outside our borders is not something that does not reverberate on our existences. And the citizen must update himself, must know, must know, must understand. He must be informed. Then he can also fly over, turn the page, change the channel in front of the crude and bloody images of war, but it is our job to put all this under his nose and before his eyes.

I myself – I confess – often feel a sense of boredom due to the insistence with which certain news is fed and administered to us. Let’s say that the press, in general, tends to flatten, to homogenize, to become repetitive and flaccid, a trend that has taken hold in particular with the pandemic, but which arises from the spread of social networks, which have made both the reader and the journalist rather lazy.

What is missing from newspapers is the costume. What is missing are the themes that give breath, that arouse curiosity, that strike, that make you think and – why not? – even smile. And I really believe that this is what you are missing. I am missing it too.

So the real problem is not how much space is given to what is happening in the US, Latin America, the Middle East, Ukraine, but how little space is given to what is happening at home, except to then focus on sterile and provincial polemics: how much it costs per night to stay at the resort where the prime minister spends her holidays, the separation between minister Lollobrigida and Arianna Meloni and that between Giorgia and Giambruno, why the prime minister hasn’t posted anything on social media for 24 hours and similar rubbish, the criminalization of MEP Vannacci because of any word he utters and the completely irrelevant question of the ius scholae, which is of no use to anyone.