Chris Hanretty

I don’t normally agree with comic-turned-political-agent-provocateur Beppe Grillo, but I have to say that the three referendum proposals he’s announced under the banner “Libera informazione in libero stato” (Free information in a free country) are spot on. The proposals are to:

1. abolish the Ordine dei Giornalisti, a Fascist-era institution which journalists must be enrolled in;
2. abolish subsidies to newspapers - now exclusively those with political ties;
3. abolition of the Gasparri law

Okay, maybe the last of these will create a gaping legislative maw, but the law’s going to have major problems in the courts soon enough anyway.