Morning newspaper © Ultrasto/Shutterstock

Morning newspaper © Ultrasto/Shutterstock

Between announced complaints and warnings, we heard from 4 newspaper editors, the union and an investigative journalist. First part of an investigation into the SLAPP phenomenon in Trentino

27/01/2025 -  Paola Rosà

“The way these complaints were written, I think they have one motivation: to try to stop the pen. They are written so poorly that they don't stand a chance, but their intent is to send a message, to instill fear in the other party”. There is clarity and acumen in the words of the editor of the online newspaper Dolomiti, Luca Pianesi. All the complaints of the last few years – shelved and never brought to court – fit the definition of SLAPP, Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.

The cases recalled by Pianesi share a harassing strategy, a casual use of the judicial system and an intimidating intent as well as the attempt to silence the debate. Like the SLAPPs, the 7 complaints and several warnings received by Pianesi over the last eight years (Dolomiti has been online since December 2016) have also shown much less noble objectives than defending the good name of those who claimed to feel damaged by the newspaper: "At the beginning we were subjected to much more pressure, phone calls, letters, but now I have thick skin. In 2022, for example, I received 4 complaints and 2 warnings, basically every two months I received a notfication. Yet I have never ended up in court".

The underworld: unknown numbers and differing perceptions

While relatively little is heard about gag complaints in Trentino, credit goes to Luca Pianesi for touching on the subject publicly.

Luca Pianesi, editor in chief of Il Dolomiti (photo private archive)

Luca Pianesi, editor in chief of Il Dolomiti

(photo private archive)

In a column  dated November 21, Pianesi retraced the over two years that had passed between when he was notified of a senator’s complaint and when the judge for preliminary investigations decided to shelve the case, after the senator had opposed a similar decision by the public prosecutor: “For us, who have been hanging on this story for 2 years, all that’s left to do is write. Tellwhat happened”, he wrote.

“But for every one we talk about, there are 15 others that one has to deal with”, Pianesi, whom we met in the editorial office in Trento, tells us. “There’s an underworld that a journalist, a newspaper editor, supports on their shoulders, with their family, with their colleagues”.

Unfortunately, the extent of this “underworld” is unknown. Journalists here are reluctant to talk about it with outsiders, and when asked, they tend to downplay the extent of the phenomenon, as if the number of lawsuits were an indicator of poor quality journalism: complaints – even those filed by individuals in bad faith – still seem to be considered a professional disgrace, and each case is archived in silence, perhaps breathing a sigh of relief but without celebrations.

This seems to be confirmed by the director of the daily newspaper l’Adige, Pierluigi Depentori, who has been at the helm of the longest-running newspaper in the province for two years, and who claims that he has not yet ended up “in court for lawsuits filed during my time as editor”, as “in most cases we receive threats of lawsuits” (also part of an intimidation strategy).

According to Depentori, to protect themselves, journalists must keep up to date on legal rules and mechanisms: "To keep colleagues updated, I plan to repeat the training course with the lawyer who assists us". But when faced with individuals who act "with bad faith and gross negligence", as stated in Article 96  of the Civil Procedure Code on frivolous litigation, there is no training that can help: even the most careful and respectful journalist can be the victim of a specious lawsuit.

In Trentino, the situation seems to be in line with the rest of Italy. 4 newspaper editors (Pierluigi Depentori of l’Adige, Luca Pianesi of Dolomiti, Simone Casalini of T Quotidiano, Ettore Paris of the monthly investigative magazine  Questotrentino) and journalist Laura Mezzanotte, with different nuances, report a professional risk that puts work serenity to the test. They confirm

Ettore Paris, Editor-in-Chief of Questotrentino, private archive photo

Ettore Paris, Editor-in-Chief of Questotrentino

(photo private archive)

the abundance of at least warnings and, even though the cases are not many, they take very seriously the intimidating power of each individual complaint or request for compensation for damages.

Ettore Paris, despite enjoying the free assistance of several lawyers since the 1980s, recalls the tense climate in the editorial office, every time, even if the case is then shelved or acquitted: the request for damages of 800 million liras by a construction company, the 50,000 Euros requested by an MP, the complaint by a winery's CEO, the lawsuit filed by Licio Gelli's son. "It's not about numbers, the intimidation is always there".

The perception at the union is more serene. Rocco Cerone, reconfirmed as regional secretary of the National Federation of the Press for Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, lets us know: "Although the phenomenon is alarming at a national level, on a regional basis it doesn't seem to be so serious: at least there aren't as many reports as in the rest of Italy".

Promised complaints and warnings

The number of threatened  complaints is impossible to estimate: warnings, emails, registered letters or even just phone calls that, in Pianesi’s summary, say: “Don’t talk about me, or I’ll sue you”.

This is far from a marginal phenomenon in the galaxy of “legal” intimidation and the forcing of the legal system, a phenomenon that a few years ago the Otto Brenner Foundation of Frankfurt, in collaboration with the Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte e.V. (GFF) of Berlin, analysed in the volume “Wenn Sie das schreiben, verklage ich Sie!”. Studie zu präventiven Anwaltsstrategien gegenüber Medien  (“If you write that, I will sue you! Preventive strategies of lawyers against media”).

According to the research, carried out in 2018 by consulting databases and interviewing 40 journalists and 20 lawyers in Germany, each newspaper receives on average at least 3 warnings per month. “These preventative strategies, which are increasingly frequent, increasingly aim to block the publication of an article or to influence public perception on the subject”.

Interference in journalism, and therefore in the right of citizens to be informed, is thus obvious, but known to few, as it is entrusted to the usually confidential correspondence between an external subject and the publisher, or director of the newspaper. But the phenomenon, as everyone in Trentino confirms, is quite widespread.

Luca Pianesi recalls an actual warning by one of the leaders of the Autostrada del Brennero: “Luckily that time we were not the only ones to have been warned, there were also our competitors from the daily newspaper l’Adige. And this allowed us to develop a common strategy and not be afraid”.

Having a legal office behind that assists the newspaper without the costs falling on individual journalists is obviously the recipe for serenity. “For us, as a cooperative – explains Pianesi – legal costs are a considerable burden. If it comes to a trial and an acquittal, the plaintiff can be ordered to pay our costs as well. But when the case is shelved, we have to pay the lawyer in full, like those two years with the senator that cost me 2000 Euros”.

An original case concerns a complaint that was only announced by MP Vittorio Sgarbi, president of the Mart museum of contemporary art of Rovereto and Trento. Simone Casalini recalls an email received from his publisher: Sgarbi contested some data published by the newspaper and said he was "forced to file a complaint". Which in the end he did not.

“The message is always the same: I’ll let you know that I can sue you, but if you stay quiet I won’t”, explains Casalini, recalling how in these cases a “strong” publisher, in solidarity with the editorial staff and not willing to bend, is fundamental. “A large role is played by the dialogue between the editorial staff and the publisher”, he explains.

Read the second part of the investigation

 

This article was produced by OBC Transeuropa as part of the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors, and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and candidate countries.