Chris Hanretty

The first signs that the par condicio - the law on equal distribution of screen time during electoral campaigns - is beginning to bite came today. The sectoral regulator Agcom invited Porta a Porta (RaiUno) and Matrix (Canale 5) to give the Radicals a chance to appear on screen; the ever-gracious Bruno Vespa immediately responded that Porta a Porta had already invited Enrico Boselli, whilst Enrico Mentana thought that this bathroom-scales approach to journalism was a bit much.  Agcom’s request is particularly strange given that it refers to the ‘parlamentary group RnP - Radicali’, one half of which has no independent campaign to speak of.