In 2023, over a third of the news broadcast in the national evening news of Rai, Mediaset and La7 was dedicated to international events, including hard news and soft news. This is one of the highest percentages of international news coverage in the 2012-2023 time frame, with a total of 15,589 international news stories, corresponding to 36% of all news broadcast.
This is the first data contained in the 6th report “Illuminare le Periferie” presented at the headquarters of the National Press Federation by representatives of COSPE, the Pavia Observatory, Usigrai, Fnsi and the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS), promoters of the report .
“Data on foreign news coverage in Italian media in 2023 – says Anna Meli, COSPE president – reveal a strong Eurocentric tendency and a persistent marginalization of geographical areas outside of Europe and North America. This imbalance in media representation is not just a matter of editorial choice, but reflects a power structure that perpetuates a worldview strongly influenced by postcolonial dynamics. The need to decolonize the representation of foreign politics in the Italian media is urgent.”
The nine sub-Saharan African countries defined as priorities for Italian Cooperation reached 180 stories in the news in 2023, recording a significant increase of 400% compared to the 36 news stories in 2021. However, some of these countries remain in the shadow, receiving only occasional coverage by the Italian media.
“Today, cooperation also means communicating. Not only to let people know what is being achieved – what the Agency disburses is public money and there is a double obligation of transparency, for the origin and destination of these resources” – but also to inspire, by spreading awareness of the projects of success, replications, re-proposals and “scale-ups”. An initiative that has a real impact inspires other actions, increases attention, foments other commitments. We can say that it mobilizes the cooperation system which in Italy is fortunate enough to be able to count, in addition to the institutionally responsible subjects (Farnesina, Agency, Cassa Depositi e Prestiti), the other Administrations, the CSOs, the territorial bodies, the Universities, the volunteering, diasporas and the private sector that follows the principles of the 2030 Agenda. We count on information professionals so that this “forest that grows silently” is increasingly told and valorised, in the name of equal partnership with the countries, the community, the people with whom we work together” was the speech by Marco Riccardo Rusconi, director of AICS.