Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 11:02:20 -0500 (EST)
From: louisgodena-AT-ids.net (Louis R Godena)
Subject: M-I: Communist newspaper turns a page



Italian business takes control

by James Blitz

Once it was the most powerful titles in Italian journalism, the mouthpiece
of the country's mighty Communist party, the PCI.

This week, however, the history of *l'Unita* -- the daily newspaper founded
by Antonio Gramsci, the father of Italian socialism -- reached a watershed
with the announcement that the PCI heirs are selling in to the private sector.

For much of this century, *l'Unita* has been synonymous with Italy's
communist movement.  Founded as fascism was taking hold on Italy in 1924,
*l'Unita* started life as a propaganda broadsheet for Gramsci's
revolutionary socialist party.

During the war the paper went underground, its smudgy banner headlines
rallying Italian resistance against Mussolini and Hitler.

During the post war period -- as the PCI and its most famous postwar leader
Palmiro Togliatti finally got their hands on a few of Italy's levers of
power -- it reached its zenith, often selling millions of copies a day.

Communist lads would go on to the streets of Italian cities on Sunday
mornings to sell it without pay.

Ambitious communist officials competed for the paper's editorship, a
stepping stone to the PCI leadership.

*L'Unita* festivals -- jamborees of food and music -- were, and still are,
occasions for huge get-togethers of people of all political persuasions.

Then the trouble started, in the 1980s came *La Republica*, a jazzier
left-of-centre rival that seduced thousands of readers.  With the collapse
of the PCI in the early 1990s,  *L'Unita* was taken over by the communist
core that formed the moderate Party of the Democratic Left (PDS), now in power.

Thousands of traditionalist readers deserted *l'Unita* after the formation
of the extreme left wing Refounded Communism, the curse of the current
administration.  This week, the PDS announced news that would probably make
Gramsci turn in his grave.

It is reducing its stake in the paper from 100 per cent to just 25 per cent.
The remaining 75 per cent will go to two business organizations, Tosinvest
and Asset, both with strong publishing interests.

The paper has much to do if it is to relaunch.  The circulation was 400,000
just two years ago and slumped below 100,000 last year.  The paper lost
L40bn ($22m) during 1997.  After years in which it was a dull read, many
assume it will have to become a bit more risque.

Yet Giuseppe Caldarola, the paper's editor, has seen most of his rivals go
down that road.  He wants to make *l'Unita* a more sober read.

"Our only course to to be a more authoritative paper, toning down the
headlines, reducing the number of pictures and looking authoritative," he said.

It is a gamble.  But it would be ironic if, at the very moment Gramsci's
heirs are running the government, his beloved broadsheet did not share the
glory.


--from *Financial Times [FT Weekend]*, January 10/11, 1998 (Page 1)  



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