Eurispes-CoRiS Sapienza Television News Observatory: prime time, Covid19 regains openings

Eurispes-CoRiS Sapienza Television News Observatory: prime time, Covid19 regains openings

The news bulletins from September 28 to October 2 – The Covid-19 epidemic, with new data on the increase in the number of infections, climbed the prime time agenda during the week, gathering 42 references in the headlines in five days, with a recurring double headline for the 8 p.m. news; the record of more than 2,500 on Thursday imposed itself at the opening on all the newspapers. Faced with “full lockdown levels”, however, the tone in the reports remains calm, with the focus on measures in individual regions. Minister Speranza, interviewed on Thursday by Tg1 (in the headlines for the others), is very present; Tg3 visits the factory in Anagni where the vaccine developed in collaboration with Oxford University will be produced. The headlines also include references to the progress of the contagion in the world, which has now claimed more than a million victims; Tg4 pays more attention than others to the damage caused by the epidemic to many economic sectors. Attention for all to the impact that Covid is having on the restart of the football championship.

With the epidemic returning to the centre of media attention, there is an increase in the in-depth reports that, during the lockdown period, had characterised the offer of a prime time orphan of the usual “party politics”. Tuesday’s News Mediaset report on the increase in mental illnesses due to the stress caused by the pandemic is interesting. Tg La7 proposes, on Monday, a detailed report on the origin of the contagion, with the Gabanelli-Mentana duo condemning China’s omissions and the “subservience” of European countries, incapable of acting as a counterbalance to the Asian power.

The contortions generated by the débâcle of the 5 Stelle are closely followed by the Mediaset and Tg La7 news, which between Thursday and Friday relaunch Di Battista’s statements. The controversy over the salary of the Inps President, Pasquale Tridico, inflames the Monday and Tuesday editions. But it is a flash in the pan, since they disappear as early as Wednesday. The hearing that on Saturday, in Catania, centred on Salvini’s actions in the affair of the migrants stranded on the Open Arms NGO ship, met with scant mention in the headlines, and was taken up by RAI and 8 p.m. news on Friday without any particular reconstruction.

The foreign affairs page is dominated by the US presidential election, or rather by the figure of President Trump, who already hit the headlines on Monday for a matter of unpaid federal taxes (picked up in several editions by Tg3, with the intervention of some commentators). The first confrontation between Trump and Biden on Wednesday “disappointed everyone” by the scurrilous and rambling nature of the speeches. «Never seen anything like the filth of this night», Mentana’s comment at the end of the service. Tg5 is the only one to propose the intervention of an editorialist, calling on the director of la Repubblica, Maurizio Molinari. The announcement that Trump and his wife had tested positive for Covid occupied the openings of the 8 p.m. news and Tg2 on Friday, with the RAI news broadcasting opposite opinions. If Sangiuliano’s Tg3 raises the proximity demonstrations of Trump’s supporters, both Tg3 and Tg1 pass a harsh judgement on the behaviour of the US President on the fight against the pandemic: like Johnson and Bolsonaro, Trump is now among the populist leaders who, after having repeatedly underestimated the impact of the disease, have themselves been infected by it. The protests in Belarus and the clash between Germany and Russia over the Navalny case, which openly accuses Putin of his poisoning, receive a few headlines and the attention of the RAI and Tg5 news.

Violent news, racking up headlines. Tg4 spotlights fishermen held hostage by Haftar. Sansonetti: the press is not doing its duty.

Much space is given to chronicle events, with the arrest of the suspect in the Lecce murder securing the openings of Studio Aperto, Tg3 and Tg5 on Tuesday. Headlines and services in the first part of the editions also for the appeal sentence in the Vannini case. Another attack with a xenophobic motive by a pack of teenagers in Marsala, on the other hand, found reduced space on Thursday, with headlines only for Tg3 and Tg5.

Worthy of mention is the attention given, on Thursday, by Tg4 to the story of the two crews of Italian fishermen currently detained in Libya by Haftar’s forces on unclear charges, and for whom the general is said to have proposed to our government an “exchange” with known smugglers. The issue is discussed with the lawyer of our kidnapped citizens and with Il Riformista columnist Sansonetti, who emphasised the scant attention given to this affair by the press so far.

Turning to economic issues, all the newspapers reported the price increases expected in October on electricity and gas tariffs and, on Friday, the not very comforting Istat data for the second quarter. On Tuesday, there was also a “short circuit” concerning the meeting between the Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, and industrialists led by Bonomi, judged positive by almost all the newspapers. Tg4 is the only one to speak in the headlines of a “Bonomi lashing out at the executive”, but on Wednesday, the leader of Confindustria himself is a guest, reiterating that «the government has shared our proposals».