Marco Travaglio

Marco Travaglio
Marco Travaglio in Trento, 2010.
Born	Marco Travaglio October 13, 1964 (1964-10-13) (age 47) Turin, Italy
Years active	1988 – present

Marco Travaglio (born 13 October 1964) is an Italian investigative journalist, writer and commentator.

Biography

Travaglio was born in Turin. He started his career writing for Catholic publications such as Il nostro tempo ("Our time"), then worked for the renowned journalist Indro Montanelli for newspapers such as Il Giornale and La Voce and gained the attention of Montanelli himself who once used to say about him: "No, Travaglio does not kill anyone. With a knife. He uses a more refined and not legally punishable weapon: the archives"

Since 14 September 2006, Marco Travaglio has been a regular guest in the TV program AnnoZero, hosted by Michele Santoro (also mentioned by Berlusconi in the Bulgarian Edict).

Recently, Travaglio has contributed as a columnist to prominent national newspapers and magazines, such as La Repubblica, L'Unità (with his old columns "Bananas", "Uliwood Party" and "Zorro") and Micromega. He still contributes to L'espresso with the column "Signorno'". In September 2009 he contributed to the formation of the independent newspaper, called Il Fatto Quotidiano ("The Daily Fact").

Political and judicial events of national importance, ranging from Mani pulite to the troubles of controversial political figure Silvio Berlusconi, have been Travaglio's main area of interest.

The journalist became well known in 2001, after participating in a TV show on state-owned national channel Raidue called Satyricon and hosted by Daniele Luttazzi. There, He presented his brand-new book, and bestseller, L'odore dei soldi ("The Smell of Money", co-authored by Elio Veltri), which investigates the origin of Mr Berlusconi's early fortunes. Berlusconi started a lawsuit for slander, but since the book reports official facts already known by the judiciary authorities, he was condemned to pay the legal expenses.^[1]

The show, aired during the campaign for the Italian general election, was heavily criticized by Berlusconi and his party and labeled by them as a politically-motivated, non-objective personal attack. After Mr Berlusconi's victory at the elections, both Travaglio and Luttazzi (together with other prominent journalists that had criticized Mr Berlusconi's or investigated his history) have never appeared again on state-owned TV shows until September 2006 (shortly after Berlusconi lost the elections and left power), causing a long debate about freedom of information and censorship in Italy.

Publications

Books by Marco Travaglio (usually co-authored with other investigative journalists) include:

• Bravi ragazzi (Italian for Good fellas), published in 2003 and reporting on politicians Cesare Previti and Silvio Berlusconi's alleged (and later confirmed by court's sentence ^[2]) corruption of judges
• Lo chiamavano Impunità ("They Call Him Impunity", a humorous reference to the spaghetti western Lo chiamavano Trinità), published in 2003, about the SME-Ariosto inquiry and court trial
• Mani Sporche (Italian for "Dirty Hands") that reports about the years following the national scandal "Mani pulite" (Italian for "Clean Hands")
• Il Bavaglio ("The Gag") mostly about the Italian politicians' plans to limit freedom of speech and the investigative means of Italian Prosecutors investigating political corruption
• Per chi suona la banana ("For Whom the Banana Tolls"; the title is a pun on For Whom the Bell Tolls, with a reference on the banana republic)
• Italia Anno Zero, Chiarelettere, 2009, ISBN 978-88-6190-051-6 (coauthors: Beatrice Borromeo and Vauro Senesi)

On 10 May 2008, Marco Travaglio commented on Renato Schifani's election as president of the Senate that one should "simply ask of the second highest office of the state to explain those relationships with those men who have subsequently been condemned for association with the Mafia" on the RAI current affairs talk show television program Che tempo fa.^[3][4][5]

The statement of Travaglio resulted in fierce and almost universally negative reactions including from the centre left, except for Antonio Di Pietro who said that Travaglio was "merely doing his job". Some called for chief executives at RAI to be dismissed.

The popular political commentator Beppe Grillo supported Travaglio, while Schifani announced he would go to Court and sue Travaglio for slander.^[6] Schifani said Travaglio's accusation was based on "inconsistent or manipulated facts, not even worthy of generating suspicions", adding that "someone wants to undermine the dialogue between the government and the opposition."^[5] Mister Schifani himself enjoys immunity as leader of the parliament.

In 2009, the German Association of Journalists awarded Travaglio its yearly prize for Freedom of the Press, describing him as a "brave and critical colleague [...] exposing continually the attempts of Italian politicians, especially Silvio Berlusconi, to influence the media to their advantage and to negate critical reports."^[7]

References

1. ^ (Italian) Court sentence
2. ^ (Italian) Condanna definitiva, Previti a Rebibbia, Il Sole 24 Ore, 5 May 2006
3. ^ (Italian) «Schifani diffamato da Travaglio», Corriere della Sera, 11 May 2008
4. ^ (Italian) Fazio chiede scusa in Tv a Schifani, La Repubblica, 11 May 2008
5. ^ ^{a b} Compromised by compromise, blog by John Hooper (The Guardian), 13 May 2008
6. ^ (Italian) Caso Travaglio, Schifani querela, Corriere della Sera, 12 May 2008
7. ^ DJV prize for Marco Travaglio, press release of the German Association of Journalists (DJV).

External links

• Il fatto quotidiano Independent journal of which Travaglio is the vice director.
• Voglio scendere Blog by Travaglio and fellow journalists and authors Pino Corrias and Peter Gomez (Italian)
• L'Antefatto Official website of Travaglio's independent newspaper, Il Fatto Quotidiano (Italian)
• Unofficial Fan site featuring a column and some other contributions by Travaglio not published elsewhere (Italian)
• Interview with Marco Travaglio (Italian)
• La Repubblica newspaper: the controversial interview with Travaglio by Luttazzi (Italian)
• Signornò [1] L'Espresso-Opinioni (Italian)
• V-day 8 September 2007 Bologna Video (Italian)
• V2-day 25 April 2008 Turin Video (Italian)
• No CAV day 8 July 2008 Rome (Italian)

Media offices
Preceded by –	Journalist for Il Giornale 1988–1994	Succeeded by –
Preceded by –	Journalist for La Voce 1994–1995	Succeeded by –
Preceded by –	Journalist for L'Unità 2002–2009	Succeeded by –
Preceded by –	Journalist for Il Fatto Quotidiano Since 2009	Succeeded by –

Persondata
Name	Travaglio, Marco
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	13 October 1964
Place of birth	Turin, Italy
Date of death
Place of death