Italy's press freedom ranking drops again amid ‘growing political interference'
The annual World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ranks 180 countries based on journalists' ability to work and report independently.
Italy ranked 49th in the 2025 edition – down by three places compared to 2024 and behind all other Western European countries.
Only six EU member states (Romania, Croatia, Malta, Hungary, Bulgaria and Greece) scored lower than Italy.
Norway, Estonia and the Netherlands topped the table for press freedom, with Britain and the US ranking 20th and 57th respectively.
'Press freedom in Italy continues to be threatened by mafia organisations, particularly in the south of the country,' RSF said.
'Journalists who investigate organised crime and corruption are systematically threatened and sometimes subjected to physical violence,' the NGO added.
Around 20 Italian reporters, including Gomorrah author Roberto Saviano, currently live under permanent police protection after they were targeted with threats or attacks.
Besides intimidation from mafia groups, journalists in Italy also 'condemn growing political interference', warning of 'attempts by politicians to obstruct their freedom to cover judicial cases,' RSF said.
The report specifically pointed to a 'gag law' prohibiting the disclosure of provisional detention orders until the end of the related preliminary court hearings.
This effectively blocks reporting on the early stages of criminal investigations.
The law, which came into force in March 2024 following a proposal from PM Giorgia Meloni's ruling coalition, has sparked harsh criticism from Italian journalists and academics.
Alessandra Costante, the head of national press union FNSI, has called it 'a freedom-killing measure' that undermines press freedom, as well as 'individual liberties".
RSF also noted that many reporters in Italy 'give in to self-censorship, either to conform to their news organisation's editorial line, or to avoid a defamation suit'.
Defamation through the media (including social media platforms) continues to be a criminal offence in Italy, with convictions carrying prison sentences of up to three years.
Threats of a defamation lawsuit are often used by powerful public figures as a way to prevent journalists from publishing critical or unfavourable stories.
Italy's drop in the ranking came at 'an unprecedented, critical low' in press freedom across the globe, according to RSF.
The decline, RSF noted, is driven by growing economic pressure, as 'today's news media are caught between preserving their editorial independence and ensuring their economic survival'.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Local Italy
15 hours ago
- Local Italy
Inside Italy: Rome's angry taxi drivers and the newest tourist hotspot in the south
Inside Italy is our weekly look at some of the news, talking points and gossip from Italy that you might not have heard about. It's published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to their inbox, by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article. We'll take a break from discussing the upcoming citizenship referendum in this weekend's newsletter (although if you're interested, you can find all our coverage here, and my thoughts on it here.) Instead, I wanted to look at a couple of stories from southern Italy that got us talking at The Local over the past week. Road rage in Rome? No one likes a lazy cliché. And clichés abound when it comes to Italy, and Italians. Most of the time, they're inaccurate and insulting. But after eight years of living in Italy, I have to admit that some of the stereotypes, while obviously they won't apply to the entire population, occasionally have a grain of truth in them. This week, we saw taxi drivers in Rome complain that it was a 'banal cliché' to describe their driving as 'aggressive'. Anyone who lives in the capital, or has ever taken a cab there, will probably have an opinion as to whether or not that's a fair description. The drivers hit out at comparisons with F1 driver Max Verstappen, who was in trouble after crashing into George Russell's Mercedes during the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday. When talking to journalists about the crash, Mercedes F1 head Toto Wolff had called it 'road rage, like the taxi drivers in Rome or Naples.' 'There's a lot of aggression in the centre of Rome and Naples, without rules.' Rome taxi drivers quickly went on the defensive, attacking Wolff over the comments in the Italian press. One driver called the comments 'a banal cliché', adding that "we're the first to try to avoid getting into accidents – otherwise, we would lose a day of work.' And a representative of the city's taxi drivers' union said: 'We drive like a Mercedes since it only does 30 kilometres an hour, just like us. I won't comment on the speed issue, since I find traffic in central Rome is usually so jammed that this is the least of the passenger's worries. As for driving style, it's not just the tassisti. Roman, and Italian, drivers in general are often criticised by non-Italians for perceived aggression and an apparent lack of regard for the road rules. This is often a topic of discussion at home. My husband, not unlike the taxi drivers, argues passionately that his very Italian driving style is excellent and extremely safe. I'm not totally convinced. But I also know that, on the roads of southern Italy, my own polite, stereotypically British driving style (including a propensity to give way and follow the speed limit) is probably even more hazardous, since no-one is expecting it. When in Rome… All aboard for Bari Another story that hit, literally, close to home for me was about Bari, the capital city of the Puglia region, where I've lived for the past five years. Puglia, especially the far southern end, has become an increasingly popular tourist destination over the past decade or so, both for Italian and international visitors. But most people skip Bari or, at most, spend a day in the old town after flying in to the city's airport, before heading straight for the beaches and luxury resorts further south. That's all apparently set to change now, as Milan-based airline Neos has launched the first ever direct flights between Bari and New York, citing enormous interest from the US market. This has triggered a flurry of articles about Bari in travel media. The New York Times hailed the city recently as the place to go this summer. At The Local, we've also seen a lot of interest in our own recent articles about Bari and the new flight route. Personally, I'm glad to see it. Not only because I may now be able to persuade friends in New York to visit, but because I'm convinced that more tourism is a good thing for the city overall. Not everyone agrees. We often tend to associate increased tourism only with the negatives: the noisy crowds, the litter, the infamously disrespectful behaviour from a minority. Bari's local newspapers have published a lot of alarmist headlines lately about a rising number of tourist rentals which are said to be pushing up long-term rental costs, while a proliferation of restaurants catering for international tastes is supposedly pushing out traditional cuisine. Most recently, there was an article in La Repubblica lamenting the 'smell of English breakfasts' wafting through the streets of Bari's old town at dawn. Some local businesses have caught on to demand for savoury alternatives to the ubiquitous cornetto and cappuccino. But Benidorm, it is not. Nor is it Florence or Venice. For a long time this city, like many other parts of the south, has had serious problems with poverty and organised crime. The old town was, until quite recently, notoriously rundown and dangerous. Today it's mostly clean and safe, and that's in large part because of the impact of the growing tourism industry. Traditional stone houses in the old town are being renovated as tourist rentals, very often by the younger generations that inherit them but prefer to live somewhere more modern. Several owners have told me that they wouldn't have bothered renovating for long-term rental, which they say brings too much risk and too little return. Without tourism, these properties would no doubt join the countless other unwanted old homes standing derelict across the country. Many of these young local people might otherwise be moving away in search of a job. Bari is still in the early days of its transformation into a tourist hotspot. The big developers and international investors have not yet taken over, and the city retains its character. In years to come, maybe Bari, too, will become overrun with tour groups, lockboxes and kebabberie. But for now the city has an opportunity to do things differently, and to learn from the mistakes of overtouristed cities in Italy and beyond. We can hope. My advice? Visit as soon as you can.
Local Italy
2 days ago
- Local Italy
Passenger compensation for flight delays set to decrease in Europe
Airline passengers in the EU enjoy the world's most generous system of compensation if their flight is delayed or cancelled. However these rights seem set to decrease after the European Council agreed to an overhaul of compensation rules, following intense lobbying from the airline industry. The agreement to extend delay times and cut compensation levels was made at a European Council summit, despite opposition from Germany and Spain. Controversially, the Council bypassed discussions with the European Parliament and made its decision legally binding using a process that has not been deployed in more than a decade. However the European Parliament can still make changes to the new rules - it has four months to respond with a proposal that must be backed by a majority of 361 MEPs. So what changes? The ruling doesn't scrap all the customer protections, but it changes the rules on compensation payments - changing both the payment amounts and the delay time after which compensation rules kick in. Under current EU Air Passenger Rights Regulation rules, passengers can claim between €250 and €600 in compensation if a flight is delayed by at least three hours, if the delay is the fault of the airline. Under the agreed changes, compensation will only be due after a four-hour delay for flights of less than 3,500 kilometres. For longer flights, airlines would be obliged to pay compensation if flights land at least six hours late, compared to the current three-hour standard. Under the new rules, €300 compensation will apply for delays of more than four hours – while €500 will be payable for delays of more than six hours involving flights of more than 3,500km. In exchange for the higher delay thresholds, airlines will have to streamline the complex and obfuscatory compensation process - in which many airlines make it very complicated to claim financial compensation but very easy to claim airline vouchers. There is also a strengthening of the rights for passengers with a disability. And what doesn't change? Other compensation rules remain unchanged, especially around the 'extraordinary circumstances' definition which covers whether airlines have to provide any compensation at all. Compensation for delays or cancellations is not paid if the problem is due to 'extraordinary circumstances' – the exact definition of this in the legislation is vague but it generally applies to situations like extreme weather, political instability, security risks or problems with air traffic control. Strikes are usually not considered to be extraordinary circumstances, neither are routine mechanical problems or staff shortages. The rules cover airlines that are registered in the EU – such as the Ireland-based Ryanair – or flights taking off from an EU or Schengen zone country. Since Brexit the rules no longer apply to the UK, but the British government has mostly "copied and pasted" it into UK legislation. Also unchanged are rules on flight cancellations and airlines responsibility to provide food, accommodation and alternative travel for passengers whose flights are delayed or cancelled. In truth this is not well policed - passengers are often simply told to make their own arrangements for accommodation and alternative travel and submit compensation claims to the airline later. Airlines do, however, routinely provide refreshments, usually in the form of food vouchers to passengers whose flights are delayed. Why the change? In a word - lobbying. Airlines had argued that the compensation payments were too high, especially for budget airlines where the compensation may be higher than the cost of the ticket. Airlines also said that they were unable to provide a replacement aircraft and crew within three hours in many European locations, and that this can lead to additional flights being cancelled because high compensation payments have already been incurred. When does this happen? The change is not immediate, first the European Parliament has four months to stage any objections and if no objection is received, then an introduction date will be set.
Local Italy
2 days ago
- Local Italy
Italy's Meloni 'completely against' easing citizenship rules as key vote nears
'Citizenship laws in Italy are excellent and also very inclusive,' Meloni said as the country prepared for a key vote on reducing the current 10-year residency requirement for naturalisation claims to five years. 'I'm completely against' the proposed citizenship reform, she added, noting that Italy has long been 'among the European countries that grant the highest number of citizenships every year". The Italian premier's words came three days after she said she would go to her polling station but not vote in any of the June 8th-9th referendums, including the citizenship vote, sparking cries of outrage among members of the opposition. Meloni defended her decision to abstain from voting on Thursday, saying that abstention was 'a right for everyone'. "I don't agree with the subjects of the referendums and, as has always been the case in the nation's history, when you don't agree, abstention is also an option," she said. proposed labour and citizenship reforms, publicly called on supporters to boycott the upcoming vote. Under Italy's voting laws, referendums must meet a voter turnout (or quorum) of over 50 percent for their results to be considered valid. If this threshold is not met, the results are automatically void, regardless of the outcome. Senate Speaker Ignazio La Russa said in late May he would "campaign to ensure that people stay home" on polling day to prevent the referendums from reaching the required turnout. MP Grazia Di Maggio also encouraged abstention, saying that 'Italians will have better things to do [than voting] on June 8th and 9th'. The government's attempts to boycott the upcoming referendums have prompted vehement reactions from opposition members. The leader of the centrist +Europa party, Riccardo Magi, condemned the hard-right coalition's 'coordinated strategy' to sabotage the referendums, saying it showed 'a lack of awareness of the institutions and role they hold'. Italy needs 'a democratic rebellion' to fight abstentionism, he added.
