Berlusconi Convicted: What We Learn from Political Media Contamination
Against all odds, former Italian prime minister Berlusconi was recently sentenced to one year in prison. This followed a long process where an Italian referendum had to be held to revoke his legal immunity, in order to indict him in the first place. We can learn a lot about the dangers of politically controlled media from how Berlusconi tried to defeat this referendum.
Phi Beta Iota: The headline does not reflect the real story: DESPITE “mainstream” media contamination, over 50% of the public participated in a vote on whether the Prime Minister's immunity should be revoked, and over 50% of those participating voted in favor of revoking his participation. What this really means is that alternative media has a greater reach than mainstream media and that the public may be illiterate, but it is not stupid and it does have values it can enforce when given the opportunity to do so.
