Taobuk, those whistles at Minister Sangiuliano “disappeared” in the Rai report

John

By John

«On Wednesday evening Rai1 broadcast an extract of the opening night of the Taobuk festival in Taormina, cutting the moment in which Minister Sangiuliano was loudly booed by the audience present. Small editing tricks even made viewers believe that the minister was applauded during the evening. What was broadcast is shameful, worthy of Kim Jong-un’s state television. This is the regime press, not the one that Prime Minister Meloni clashes ideologically every day”. Thus the Democratic deputies of the Culture Commission of the Chamber. “The umpteenth episode of Meloni’s minculpop was broadcast on Rai. We will present a question to understand the precise responsibilities for what happened. Thus the M5S group leader in the Rai supervisory commission Dario Carotenuto.

Rai’s response was immediate, specifying that the programme was not an internal production.but it was provided by the Taormina Book Festival Association, which created it, taking care of every aspect of production, without any involvement of Rai resources and personnel”. “The company will in any case ask for explanations to fully clarify what happened”, concludes the note.

«On the censored whistles to Minister Sangiuliano, the Rai patch is worse than the hole. With a press release, Rai once again certifies the abyss into which the information product of the public service has ended up. Outsourced, the contents that then end up in Rai’s information programs and newscasts have no editorial control by the journalistic structures”. The Usigrai executive underlines this. If the “largest cultural industry in the country – it continues – is not even able to verify what it broadcasts, those who manage the company must draw the consequences or show that they have solutions capable of responding to the legitimate expectations of citizens and employees. Both are interested in Rai’s credibility; the former because they pay the license fee and the latter because they work there to guarantee the product they provide to users”, concludes the Usigrai executive.

Following the controversy over the video, a note from the 2024 Taobuk Award Gala was also released: «The Taobuk Award Gala 2024 is an independent production created by the Taormina Book Festival Association, which delivers it to Rai for broadcast. As in all live programming – it reads – the sound used is that which comes from the microphones of those on stage. Ambient sound is excluded for obvious technical reasons. This also happened in the case of the Gala, whose editing includes, among other things, a reduction to 80 minutes of a 150-minute film. Furthermore – the note continues – the Gala is entertainment, not a journalistic product, the editing reflects a stylistic choice, to give priority to culture, without entering the political arena. Finally, it should be reiterated – the note concludes – that the production has not received any request from an external source to modify the editorial content of the program».