Rome – In the past few hours, a deeply disturbing episode has shaken the city. A video, circulated by the social media page Welcome to Favelas, shows journalist Francesco Magnani – a familiar face on La7 and former contributor to L’Aria che tira – involved in a car accident which, according to initial reports, may have been caused by him. The footage captures several young people lying on the ground after the impact, while the journalist, instead of showing concern for their condition, responds with violent words, even invoking the Red Brigades and threatening medical staff who rushed to the scene.
Who is Magnani? Born in Cesena in 1979 and holding a degree in philosophy from Bologna, he began his career at Ansa, later moved to SkyTg24, and then to Mediaset. In Rome, he achieved his so-called “professional breakthrough,” joining La7 as an editor and later hosting the summer edition of L’Aria che tira.
And yet, the incident has been absent from Italy’s major newspapers. Only a handful of outlets, usually critical of the political line Magnani represents, have reported on it. The rest of the media system has opted for silence—a silence that is anything but accidental. As Alessandro Orsini writes in Casa Bianca – Italia. La corruzione dell’informazione di uno Stato satellite: “I call ‘corrupt’ the kind of information that tramples on the essential truth of facts in order to please power.” It is the logic of protecting friends, those who belong to your caste. The mechanism never changes: one builds a narrative that shields those in power, hiding their dark sides. An elevator that rewards the loyal and punishes those who dare to raise questions.
So one must ask: why has the Magnani video, which went viral within hours on social media, found no echo in newspapers that proclaim themselves daily guardians of truth? Why ignore a matter of clear public interest, especially when it involves a prominent figure in Italian journalism, leaving it instead to social networks to fill the void? And who is pressuring Welcome to Favelas? The Magnani case, more than an isolated event, appears to fit perfectly into the system Orsini denounces with such force: a form of information that “has nothing to do with bribes or payoffs” but rather bends “to the rules of power, to its deceptions and its professional degradations.”
A system that decides what to report and what to censor, that can be ruthless with some and shockingly lenient with others. Perhaps, then, the real question is not so much who Francesco Magnani is – his profile is well known – but rather who is protecting whom, and why a press that remains silent in this case sets itself up as a moral authority whenever it serves the interests of the powerful.
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