In 2025, Italy ranks 49th out of 180 in the World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders, marking a further decline from 2024, when it was in 46th position. This is the worst ranking among Western European countries: while France, Germany, and the Scandinavian nations consistently occupy the top positions, Italy stands out negatively.
The reasons behind this decline are numerous and structural. Journalists continue to face threats, intimidation, and violence, sometimes at the hands of the police themselves, whose behavior toward the press increasingly appears inappropriate: there are reports of arbitrary seizures, hostile conduct, excessive use of force, and obstructions to journalistic activity. Equally troubling is the role of the judiciary, which on several occasions has authorized measures that violate the confidentiality of sources, undermining one of the fundamental principles of press freedom. Adding to this is a murky and ambiguous relationship between some magistrates and journalists: informal, and entirely unlawful, collaborations exist which enable the orchestrated dissemination of information beneficial to specific investigations. Those who resist this logic—refusing to be tools of judicial power—risk becoming targets of reprisal.
Further contributing factors include political interference, the systematic use of SLAPP suits, and both legal and illegal surveillance practices. In many cases, even authorized wiretaps have the sole purpose of uncovering journalists’ sources, seriously undermining the right to information. Even more alarming is the use of spyware, which allows covert and unlawful access to reporters’ devices. In such a climate, speaking of “press freedom” risks becoming a rhetorical exercise, useful only to those seeking to preserve appearances without addressing the root of the problem.
Institutional Attacks: Censorship and Interference
An emblem of the distorted relationship between politics and journalism in Italy is the persistent influence the Italian government exerts over RAI, the national public broadcaster. This influence manifests through politically driven appointments, targeted program cuts, and increasingly obvious retaliations against independent voices. The case of journalist Gennaro Sangiuliano, appointed Minister of Culture under the Meloni government, remains one of the most embarrassing examples.
Sangiuliano, a former TG2 director, has long been known for inaccurate communication, a poor command of the Italian language, and frequent linguistic gaffes. He reached a top cultural position despite being clearly unable to formulate coherent sentences in correct Italian. His appointment caused considerable embarrassment, not only due to his intellectual shortcomings, but also for how his departure unfolded: a personal scandal, triggered by a blackmailer, led to his resignation. Yet the real scandal came before the fall: it lies in the appointment itself.
His list of gaffes reads like a tragicomic anthology. In August 2024, he celebrated the 2500th anniversary of Naples on Instagram with a caption that read — verbatim — “two and a half centuries of Naples”. In June, at the Taobuk Literary Festival in Taormina, he claimed that Christopher Columbus circumnavigated the globe in 1492 “based on the theories of Galileo Galilei”, ignoring the fact that Galileo was born in 1564, over seventy years later. In April, during the presentation of a new archaeological walking tour in Rome, he mistakenly placed Times Square in London. Perhaps the most memorable slip occurred during the 2023 Strega Prize ceremony. Invited to promote reading on live TV, he said: “Reading is fundamental, enriching, lets you live existential moments… I listened to the stories expressed in these books that are finalists tonight… I’ll try to read them.” When the host replied, “Oh, you haven’t read them?”, the minister tried to backtrack: “Yes, I’ve read them because I voted, but I want to, let’s say, go deeper into them.” The host replied: “You mean… beyond the cover? A big round of applause for our minister.”
Beyond the satire, this episode raises a more serious question: what kind of political and cultural model is represented by such appointments? And what does it say about the state of Italian journalism, from which Sangiuliano emerged? The issue is not merely personal inadequacy, but a system that produces and sustains such figures: a journalism that is often submissive, domesticated, and ready to serve as a springboard for political ambitions, even at the cost of credibility, competence, and above all, independence.
Digital Threats: Espionage Against Journalists
Between 2023 and 2024, the phones of several Fanpage.it journalists, including Francesco Cancellato and Ciro Pellegrino, were subjected to surveillance via the Paragon spyware, a highly intrusive tool used to monitor private communications and activities. As a result, the outlet terminated all contractual relations with the Italian government.
In any other democratic country, such a scandal would have triggered an institutional crisis, with immediate resignations, judicial inquiries, and a strong defense of press freedom. In Italy, however, the story was silenced: no major journalistic investigations, few outraged editorials, not even from media outlets employing the targeted reporters. This silence may be the most disturbing aspect of the entire affair. When violations of fundamental freedoms no longer provoke outrage, but only resignation or collusion, it is no longer only the press under surveillance—democracy itself is in danger.
In June 2025, further revelations emerged: seven phones, including that of Roberto D’Agostino (Dagospia), were confirmed to be hacked, with Italian intelligence authorized to use Paragon on presumed terrorists or mobsters, though without transparent safeguards.
A Regressing Europe: The “Dismantler” Report
In March 2025, the Civil Liberties Union for Europe included Italy among the EU’s five “dismantler” countries—along with Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, and Slovakia—citing the erosion of the separation of powers, political interference in the judiciary, and attacks on media pluralism. Particular concerns included RAI’s political capture and the use of SLAPP lawsuits to intimidate dissenting voices.
Why This Matters
The ongoing centralization of information—through restrictive laws, political appointments, selective funding cuts, and even illegal surveillance—is undermining one of the pillars of democracy: the watchdog function of a free press.
Today, reporters in Italy operate under a dual threat: on one side, the State, which exerts both overt and covert pressure; on the other, organized crime, whose methods are increasingly reflected in state institutions. Italy’s low ranking in the Reporters Without Borders index is a telling symptom of this systemic tension.
We are not always dealing with criminals in the technical sense: the intersection of political power and mafia logic is often subtle, yet no less dangerous. Officials, administrators, and lawmakers act through intimidation, spread false information, and use financial or legal pressure to silence uncomfortable reporting. The formal structures of democracy remain in place, but its substance is hollowed out by a systematic abuse of power.
Some Open Questions
What makes this picture even more concerning is that, at least on paper, tools already exist to protect press independence. The European Media Freedom Act, adopted in 2024 and effective in 2025, aims to shield journalistsfrom political pressure, unlawful surveillance, and economic coercion. The regulation—fully binding for Italy by the end of 2025—forbids the use of spyware against journalists (except in rare, justified cases), mandates transparency in media ownership, regulates public advertising distribution, and establishes a European oversight board.
But Italy’s problem is not the absence of laws—it’s the systematic circumvention of their spirit. The country continues to sidestep rules through a power apparatus that rewards conformity and punishes independence, using increasingly sophisticated techniques rooted in a political culture that has never truly embraced press freedom. We are at a crossroads. The rise of political control over public institutions, editorial concentration, complicit silenceon digital espionage, and the normalization of intimidation against journalists signal a scenario where free information is no longer guaranteed, but tolerated—as long as it doesn’t disturb too much. And what is most disturbing is the role of those who are supposed to uphold fundamental rights, not bend them: the judiciary. What part has it played—and continues to play—in this systemic erosion of press freedom? Which judgesauthorize decisions that violate source confidentiality to satisfy “friends” and “colleagues”? Who independently oversees magistrates who act with clear conflicts of interest and issue rulings shaped more by personal ideology than by law? Who regulates the use of spyware, sanctioned “for national security”? And most importantly: who is held accountable when constitutional safeguards are suspended in the name of an opaque reason of State, never publicly debated?
In a healthy democracy, the judiciary should act as a bulwark, not a silent accomplice. We cannot accept that a Public Prosecutor receives an award from the Journalists’ Association. We cannot accept the existence of cozy relationshipsbetween newsrooms and prosecutors. So we must ask: Is it still possible to restore balance? Or has Italy already accepted, without saying so, that the truth is a nuisance to be monitored and neutralized? Questions, yes. But increasingly uncomfortable ones.
I.R.
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