Two Influential Correspondents On the Challenge of Shaping Italian Public Opinion

By Letizia Airos and Stefano Vaccara

How does Italian public opinion about the strongest nation on earth take form? 9/11, pre-emptive war in Iraq, the role of the media: U.S. correspondents Gianni Riotta for Corriere della Sera and Vittorio Zucconi for La Repubblica talk about the difficult and sensitive task of shaping, establishing, conditioning the Italian perception of the U.S.A.
The correspondents from the Italian papers are the eyes and ears that "translate" America for Italy. It's basically through your articles that Italians know (or don't) this great nation's virtues and weaknesses. You have an enormous responsibility. What's the hardest thing about your job right now?
RIOTTA - "Until a few years ago it was Italy's pro-american bias. Mentioning anything negative -- the death penalty, the homeless, the dysfunctional public schools in the cities -- was seen as anti-american. Now the opposite trend prevails, Europe doesn't like the U.S. Therefore, people don't want to hear that th e labor market is functioning, that maybe the French president doesn't always have the longsightedness of a good strategist, or that Schroeder has transformed Germany from a major force in world events into a less significant nation. For many Europeans the Americans are "cowboys" now, and nobody wants to admit there's also a peace movement here. Unfortunately many of us journalists promoted the the first collective sentiment before, and now promote the second. Writing against the tide is necessary, it's hard but we have to do it."
ZUCCONI - "The difficulty is dealing with the enormous spread of information about the U.S., the endless tons of good stuff and garbage racing together through all the old and new media (internet). It multiplies the classical problem of the Italian correspondent, who has to identify and choose the most important report out of thousands of inputs. More than ever the U.S. is a supermarket, a smorgasboard where you get the picture you want, and it's a build-it-yourself kit. America is whatever you imagine or want it to be (and naturally their own America is what people usually choose). You risk staying at the office all day reading the papers or poring over the net. Take the mass peace demonstration in Washington. Part accidentally, part on purpose, the papers in the capital city weren't planning on it. One only heard about it in the cafes, bars, or libraries where the movement was meeting. The job of the journalist is to put himself in the street, meet people, talk to the veterans, the emigrants, the Italian- Americans, the students, the police, the pacifists, the government, everybody. At the Italian market on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx you can talk about foreign politics and buy some really excellent beans while you're at it!"
How heavy is the influence of events in Italy on your articles about America? Is Italian public opinion influencing your judgements on America, or is it more the other way around?
RIOTTA - "We have to know what the Italians are thinking, and the Mannheimer and Diamanti polls in Corriere and Repubblica help. But that doesn't mean mold your article to please the reader’s thinking!"
ZUCCONI - "It depends on the paper. And on the journalist. Writers for politically aligned papers feel bound to service the political line of the paper, or they do it automatically - especially for party papers, or when aligned political leaders or publishers own the paper. Case in point: the war. If one is not under some kind of influence, or has no political "agenda," one tries to give a more balanced picture. The American correspondents around the world have the same problem we do. Right now, especially the ones who are stationed where 'freedom kisses' come from."(just as french fries have become freedom fries)
The press is often called “the fourth power," TV the “fifth power." How is their state of health right now in America? Are they still good models of correct information-making for Italy to follow?
RIOTTA - "For many years I hoped the best of American information was vaccinating information in Italy. Now I'm afraid Italy is contaminating America with its worst: the fatuous, the vague, the agenda-driven, the picturesque with little old grampas out West saying their lines like in an animated cartoon. Italy seems to me still somewhat behind. The conflict of interest between politics and information is deep in our country, and only a few ingenuous people attempt to work with facts threshed of opinion (I'm one of them)."
ZUCCONI - "It's the same in journalism as in physics, everything's relative. The American media obviously aren't the post-Watergate type anymore, especially since the onslaught of editors with strong ideological agendas like Murdoch (Fox TV), but they aren't controlled by the government like Italy's Rai or Mediaset either. To me it seems that the real problem is not so much political influence but rather that entertainment and information are mistaken for each other. Everything's blended in one cauldron - weight loss diets, sex, wars, blood, celebrities and gossip - all hunting for an audience. Generally though, it seems to me that we in the Italian media are way behind the Americans in the work of reflecting our national political culture."
These days is explaining America to the Italians harder, or is it harder for American correspondents to explain Italy to the Americans?
RIOTTA - "This you have to ask Frank Bruni of the New York Times, in Rome, or Dan Williams of the Washington Post."
ZUCCONI - "Our job is definitely harder, explaining America to the Italians. Because we're actually doing it. Our American colleagues in Italy have refused to try to explain Italy to the Americans. You never read anything serious in the American media on Italy's politics, economy, or society. All the U.S. knows about Italy is the three Ps: Pope, pizza, and petty gossip. More than ever. I wish I could do a poll of readers of the New York Times and the Washington Post, both high quality papers, and ask what they've read about Italy over the last 12 months."
Does the difference between America's government and America's people still need to be clarified to your readers? Or are the White House and Congress really mirroring U.S. society so for you to make the distinction would be superfluous, or even hypocritical?
RIOTTA - "Politics and civil society are different, but we can't make them cancel each other out either, they're not mutually exclusive. People say 'but so few Americans vote.' True, but the polls of the past few years say the same government would have been elected if large numbers had voted. Politics has one weight and civil society has another, a different one. It's the same in the U.S. as in every modern democracy. Naturally the people who are hostile to what's going on in American politics always point out the difference."
ZUCCONI - "I'm not anti-american, I'm anti-Bush (or Clinton, or Reagan, etc., etc.). If you agree with what the White House is doing, you believe it represents the will of the people. And in war time, or times of acute international crisis, the facts tend to flatten out the difference, except when things go badly and the crisis explodes. The American "rally round the President" and "support our boys and girls" phenomenon is the really difficult thing to explain to Italians, because when a crisis explodes (in Italy), Italians tend to disperse."
Does America seem stronger or weaker to you after 9/11?
RIOTTA - "Strong at leading coalitions, and weak, when it has a panic attack or a fit of hubris and wants to do everything on its own."
ZUCCONI - "Both. To me America is an explosive cocktail of "vulnerability" and "power," it has the classic wounded giant syndrome. The giant wakes up to the fact that the pygmies and their poisoned arrows are a threat, and he reacts with confidence in his strength instead of his intelligence. The risk is of course you burn down the house to get rid of the rats, you shoot a cockroach with a cannon."
The second Gulf war, does it stink of oil, or not? Bush the Texan is in the presidency, his vice is the ex CEO of a company dealing in oil. Coincidence?
RIOTTA - "Ask a European how much U.S. oil is imported from the Gulf and they always say 70 or 80 percent. It's less than 20 percent. Since after the fall of the Shah, the U.S. needs a second supporting pillar in the Gulf. Saudi Arabia is the last one left, and it is creaking. The purpose of the war is to consolidate the U.S. presence in the Gulf and oil is a crucial element of that presence. But along with the war for oil, there's also the peace for oil, by which I mean the Paris and Moscow contracts with Saddam."
ZUCCONI - "The first Gulf War stank of oil too, and James Baker's reason for the '91 war was honest, just the one word "jobs." The oil factor is definitely there but it would be very simplistic to explain everything with it. Incidentally: the oil companies make more when the price of crude goes up (gouging). A ten dollar barrel is no good to Texas and its various big oil sisters."
Is the doctrine of pre-emptive intervention a self-defense mechanism against terrorists sponsored by rogue states, or a modern version of Wilson's “messianic” war to expand democracy? Which of the two interpretations is better (or more dangerous) for world stability?
RIOTTA - "See my last answer: to stabilize the region, after years of patience and perhaps overly tender relations with Saddam."
ZUCCONI - "The theory of pre-emptive war isn't the real problem. The problem is that the strongest power is acting unilaterally, and feels it has the right to make war where and when it wants, bringing along "whoever's with us" and as for the others, tough for them. In the new "threat scenario," it is thinkable to go further than the retaliation doctrine (second strike), to attack in order to prevent imminent danger. But not if there's only one person making the decisions. That will open up truly horrifying scenarios. You can't accuse people of being traitors if they aren't supporting you. If I tell my wife I'm getting a new girlfriend and she protests, she's not the one who's being unfaithful."
If the decision to attack Iraq had been made by Clinton or another Democrat rather than Bush, would opinion in Italy on this war be different?
RIOTTA - "Gore was a hawk on Iraq.....but "ifs" won't get you anywhere.”
ZUCCONI - "I'd say probably yes, assuming Clinton followed the same path as Bush after 9/11. The unpopularity of the seller always affects the sale. You buy the seller more than the product."
Is anti-americanism distributed evenly all over Europe, or is there more of it in Italy? And if so, why? What should scare us more, anti-americanism in Europe, or the growing anti-european sentiment in America? Can the widening Atlantic rift compromise the supremacy of the Western model?
RIOTTA - "At this point the U.S. and Europe are competing geopolitically as well as economically. If we Europeans want to keep an equal footing, we need a common defense and a common diplomacy. Iraq and the Balkans are not positive experiences, and it is extremely sad to see the Europeans split at the UN."
ZUCCONI - "These are questions for a three-day university conference. To supersynthesize, one can say that the issue to worry about for Washington is that this "anti-americanism" is flooding into a world that was never very americanized in customs and pop culture in the first place; a world where the majority of the electorate is moderate conservative. This means that U.S. cultural hegemony is causing an allergic reaction that can't be explained with formulas like "the left" or "Moscow gold" anymore, nor with the idiocies about France being a traitor, with the antiwar percentages in Great Britain and France or Italy being so high. It's not only in the U.S. that the concept of the West is having an identity crisis exists. New Wests are possible and are now emerging, and they can't only be defined as opposites of the Communist East anymore."
Wall Street started going up when the last diplomatic round shut down at the UN. But the uncertainty sure doesn't end when the war starts. In your work, how good a compass is Wall Street?
RIOTTA - "It can be a compass gone insane, look at the years of internet boom and crash."
ZUCCONI - "The way I see it, zero. I agree with Ben Bradlee, ex -director of the Washington Post. Wall Steet is a casino disguised as a serious institution and its dynamic is nothing but the 'greed and fear' pendulum (look at the new economy). I'm interested in Wall Street as an investor, not as a j ournalist."
If you could ask President Bush a question at his next press conference, what would it be?
RIOTTA - "How do you intend to patch things up with the Europeans if the reconstruction of Iraq is as slow and as badly done as the one in Afghanistan; and when are you going to cancel Ashcroft's restrictions on civil liberties?"
ZUCCONI-"Did you really stop drinking?"