ROME LETTER/Paddy Agnew: Question: How to defeat at the ballot box a media-tycoon-cum-prime-minister who exercises de-facto control over 90 per cent of the country's televisual media? Answer: Run a TV anchorwoman against him, someone who is not only glamorous and intelligent but also a household name.
Obvious, is it not? If anyone out there still had not understood that the key forum for Italian political debate is the TV studio, then the candidacy of anchorwoman Lili (Dietlinde) Gruber in next month's European elections should have finally cleared things up.
Last week it was announced that Ms Gruber, arguably the best-known primetime newsreader (and reporter) on state TV RAI over the last decade, will stand in the opposition centre-left Ulivo ranks in a central Italy constituency in which her main opponent will be the Prime Minister and media tycoon, Mr Silvio Berlusconi.
If Ms Gruber wins a seat, then hers will be no Pyrrhic victory. She resigned her job last week amid a blaze of polemics, accompanied by an open letter in which she roundly accused Mr Berlusconi of such heavy manipulation of news bulletins on flagship RAI 1 that he has undermined "the entire radio and television system and the credibility of democracy itself".
The point about Lili Gruber, you see, is that she did more than read the primetime news; she also worked extensively as TV reporter, usually covering the hottest story of the day.
Most recently that role included a three-month stint in Iraq last year, an assignment that she converted into a best-selling book.
Her tough, forthright and courageous reporting, allied to her all too obvious intelligence and good looks, have earned her household name status in Italy.
They have also earned her professional credibility. When she suggests that Silvio Berlusconi is manipulating the TV news, then many Italians are likely to listen.
"Today, that very pluralism which should be an integral part of the DNA of RAI is under threat, at times often absent.
"The lack of an agreed framework of rules, the anomalous concentration of power in the hands of one single person and the all too evident and unresolved conflict of interests that derives from that all undermine the entire radio and television system and the credibility of democracy itself", she wrote in her resignation letter last week.
Ironically, her critical words came in the same week that the US-based non-profit organisation Freedom House issued an annual global press freedom survey in which it concluded that "setbacks took place in countries where democracy is backsliding, such as in Bolivia and Russia, and in older, established democracies, most notably Italy".
Freedom House assesses the degree of print, broadcast and Internet freedom in every country in the world, assigning a rating of "free", "partly free" or "not free" to each country. Italy now ranks 74th in the Freedom table, the first of the "partly free" countries, but ranked less free than Benin, Botswana and the Solomon Islands.
Freedom House's managing editor, Karin Deutsch Karlekar, explained Italy's demotion last week by saying: "Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been able to exert undue influence over the public broadcaster RAI.
"This further exacerbates an already worriesome media environment characterised by unbalanced coverage within Berlusconi's enormous (private) media empire".
Ironically, too, Lili Gruber's resignation from RAI came just one week before that of the president of the network, Ms Lucia Annunziata, who yesterday handed in her cards, in protest at what she called "the occupation of the company", adding: "I am resigning in order to highlight the fact the boundaries of pluralism have long since been bypassed and that this board is now operating as an illegal entity".
In particular, Ms Annunziata's resignation was prompted, she said, by a series of key appointment proposals made yesterday by the Berlusconi-nominated managing director, Mr Flavio Cattaneo, "with less than three hours, notice".
Ms Annunziata, herself an experienced journalist who had worked for the dailies La Repubblica and Corriere Della Sera as well as RAI, was appointed as a "guarantor" president in March last year. During a recent briefing with the resident foreign press corps in Rome, she claimed that the Prime Minister himself regularily phoned reporters and editors in order to make his views known.