The most hosted guest in four of the main Italian television talk shows, in eleven years, from 2012 to 2023, is the Director of the Newspaper Alessandro Sallusti (at times also Director of Libero). In second place is the Fatto Quotidiano journalist Andrea Scanzi. In third place is the editorialist of La Repubblica Massimo Giannini, former Director of La Stampa.
The ranking emerges from research being conducted by Marco Gambaro, professor of Media Economics and Economics of communication at the University of Milan. The research examines four of the most well-known talk shows, “Dimartedì”, hosted by Giovanni Floris on La7, “Otto e mezzo”, hosted by Lilli Gruber on La7, “Quarta Repubblica”, hosted by Nicola Porro on Rete 4 and “Cartabianca”, hosted by Bianca Berlinguer on Rai 3 (now on Rete 4, “It’s always white paper”).
understanding the problems
The idea is to measure the position of each guest, to weigh the political balance that each talk tries to guarantee. “In many cases – writes Professor Gambaro – the overall political balance is maintained by placing alongside the politician belonging to a certain party one or more journalists decidedly aligned with another side”. It therefore appears, already from the first data released on LinkedIn by Gambaro, that journalists in TV debates are invited on the basis of a political connotation, to act as a counterbalance to the political guests. In some way they fail to comply with their professional ethics, according to which they should be representatives of the citizens, not taking sides, but dedicated to understanding and explaining some problems.
Let’s see the rankings that emerge from the research. Sallusti, who has a centre-right orientation, collected 216 appearances at “Otto e mezzo”, 169 at “Dimartedì” and 128 at “Quattro Repubblica” in eleven years, for a total of 513. Scanzi, centre-left orientation, reached 428, with 291 appearances at “Otto e mezzo” and 137 at “Cartabianca”. Giannini, center-left orientation, has 367 appearances, with 209 at eight and a half, 121 at “Dimartedì” and 37 at “Cartabianca”. Then come Marco Travaglio, who however collected 355 appearances all at “Otto e mezzo”, Beppe Severgnini of Corriere della Sera with 287 and Antonio Padellaro, ex Fatto Quotidiano, with 201. Paolo Mieli scored 186 appearances, Maurizio Belpietro, Director of La Verità , 153, Daniele Capezzone, today Deputy Director3 of Libero, 146.
difficult to classify
Journalists make up the lion’s share, then there are two other categories that animate the talks, politicians and technicians. And the difficult to classify. Among the politicians, the most invited is Matteo Salvini, 128 appearances, all at “Quarta Repubblica”. Among the technicians in the lead, the pollster Nando Pagnoncelli at 203, Elsa Fornero at 146, the biologist Barbara Gallavotti at 75. Two people who are not clearly classifiable are very invited, Massimo Cacciari, philosopher, former mayor of Venice with 184 appearances and Vittorio Sgarbi, art critic, mayor, deputy, undersecretary, European parliamentarian, with 146.
The research work is conducted with Tommaso Anastasia, Nicola Chelotti and Riccardo Puglisi. “We plan – says Professor Gambaro – to measure the political position of each guest: in the case of politicians we will use the Chapel Hill and Manifesto Project databases, while for the other guests we will base ourselves on their following choices on X/Twitter (i.e. which accounts decide to follow). This allows us to build an econometric model and evaluate how the editorial choices of different talk shows evolve according to changes in government or board of directors, electoral results, surveys on voting intentions or other external events. It is also possible to evaluate whether the behaviors of the various programs are systematically heterogeneous or follow common logic: by combining with the audience data it is also possible to study to what extent the various guests contribute to the overall audience of the program”.
Examining the top positions we see that Floris three journalists from the centre-left and three from, Berlinguer three from the centre-left and one from the centre-right, Gruber four from the centre-left and one from the centre-right, Porro three from the centre-right and two from the centre-left.
Reporter Profession
(in the photo, Professor Marco Gambaro)
