Berlusconi has always sought to take over the independant press, the most famous case being the Mondadori takeover through bribery for which his group was condemned. The recent sentence in a civil court condemned his group to pay 750 million euro damages to the De Benedetti group.
The Mondadori take-over however was not as complete as he desired. At the time it also included the Espresso-La Repubblica group that managed to break out of the deal thanks to very heavy political pressure at the time, as well as the craftiness of the E-R group. Had Berlusconi prevailed he would have controlled la Repubblica and L'Espresso giving him a monopoly of the two major weeklies as well as the leading Italian paper as of 1992.
La Repubblica is perhaps the only major "pure" editorial enterprise in Italy. All major papers are controlled as bargaining chips in the political arena by industrial giants or political parties (Corriere della Sera, la Stampa, Sole 24 Ore. This has accustomed Italian readers to impulsively suspect hidden objectives behind the news rather than plain editorial professionality.
In conclusion, the Berlusconi press has launched a ridiculous smear campaign against the judge who condemned Berlusconi to pay damages. Judge Mesiano is a very strange person! He goes to the barber shop, smokes, shows signs of impatience at times, but above all he wears blue trousers, turquoise socks and white loafers. Indeed, highly suspicious! Prime morning reportage. Paranoia galore!
As for Spain and the rest of the nations of Europe, exceptional measures must be taken to block any takeover whatsoever by Berlusconi.
An accompanying article by Stefano Carli that illustrates the situation of telecommunications in Spain and Prisa's crisis is not available on the net.
Berlusconi's Telecinco is already the leader in audience shares in Spain and has its eyes on Prisa's Cuatro TV. Are we going to witness the berlusconisation of Spain- and Latin America- in the near future? Is it already on the way? With Cuatro and El Pais under the belt all Berlusconi would need is a compliant rightwing PM.
