Sigfrido Ranucci continues to work on the new cycle of Reports: he would also have talked about it in yesterday's meeting with the director of Rai Insights Paolo Corsini, in one of the work meetings that continue even after the Lavitola affair broke out.
Therefore, the hypothesis of the host taking a step back would not be on the table at the moment, nor are the rumors regarding the journalist's intention to ask for compensation from Rai in the event of removal from the program confirmed. In this very delicate phase, after the Ethics Committee's report was delivered to CEO Giampaolo Rossi, Rai's mouth is tight: the head of the company will need a few days to delve into the dossier and make his decisions on the future of Report and on the running of the program in full autonomy, while looking carefully at the developments of the investigation after the confirmation of prison for Lavitola.
But the discontent of the leaders regarding the reputational damage for public television was equally evident, as was the intolerance and concern for the possible impact of the affair on advertising revenues. A position to which Ranucci's lawyer, Roberto De Vita, responds today: "The (inconvenient) victim of a serious attack (which becomes a pretext) is held responsible for damage to the image and is asked by politicians to replace it, a moral paradox with serious consequences for democracy".
Under the lens of the Ethics Committee, behaviors in possible conflict with ethical principles, from the judgments expressed via WhatsApp by Ranucci towards Rossi and Rai to the voice message on the presence of mafia and freemasonry in the company, to Corsini's confidential email, in which he asked for a rebalancing of the Report investigations, sent to Lavitola. During the hearing "Ranucci responded promptly and in depth to all the questions asked, offering factual elements that dispelled any possible doubt regarding unfounded and specious political and journalistic reconstructions", claims the lawyer.
However, tensions affect the RAI board of directors. For Alessandro di Majo and Roberto Natale, it is central to understand whether the relationship between Ranucci and Lavitola "has influenced the choice of some of the themes or contents of Report or not". "If the discussion were to shift to the opportunity of personal interactions, to critical interventions on social media" or "to behaviors that do not directly concern the choice of editorial content, we would end up on slippery ground", they warn. As for the possible damage to advertising, "so far Report has represented a value for the company". Federica Frangi replies: "Independence yes, impunity no. Confidentiality, relationships of loyalty and correctness towards the company, behavior towards the editorial staff and protection of the image of the programme, are also aspects that Rai has the right and duty to evaluate". And "the value of the program cannot become a shield for the behavior of those who lead it".
Ranucci does not give interviews, but in the meantime he posts a speech by the Democratic Party information officer Sandro Ruotolo on Facebook, titling it: "The government asks for my replacement, the Democratic Party reports to the EU Commission". In fact, the MEP announced that he had "written to the Executive Vice President of the European Commission Henna Virkkunen to draw her attention to the repeated declarations of Deputy Prime Minister Salvini" against the host of Report, "and to the request made to Rai to suspend him from hosting the programme". An issue that for Ruotolo affects "the independence of the public service and the application of the European Media Freedom Act". FdI MP Salvatore Deidda has an opposite opinion, announcing a question to the Ministers of Economy and Business: "The independence of the public service is actually under attack and European principles are clearly violated. There is only one small detail that the left omits to mention: the ones trampling on the Emfa on a daily basis are precisely the editorial staff of Report, its presenter and the 5 Star Movement". M5s responds: "Fratelli d'Italia talks about private use of Rai, but you should look at your own home. They made the schedules their own, placing friends and loyalists paid with license fee money for programs that often turned out to be flops".
