Internal Solution for Report

The reporters: "No to external takeover" but the newsroom is split. These are decisive hours at Rai for the future of Sigfrido Ranucci and of Report: work is underway to define a new role for the journalist and, at the same time, the succession at the helm of Rai3's flagship investigative program, a knot for which the internal solution — from the program's team or in any case from the company — is gaining more and more ground. Rai could break the deadlock tomorrow, Friday, August 28, at the end of a week of meetings and contacts, but it is not a given.

"We are waiting for a decision, a decision that has a clear political matrix, but I resist until the last, the journalist says in the evening, in Favignana for the presentation of his book 'Navigare senza paura'. The company's top management is inclined to offer Ranucci a role in line with his qualification (in addition to being head author of Report, he is deputy director ad personam of the Approfondimento), to avoid the risk of a lawsuit for demotion: it is not clear whether it will be a single proposal or a range of three possible choices. On the table, in the final shortlist, there would certainly be Tg3 and Rainews, outlets for which the journalist has already worked during his long career in the company.

As for the future of Report, the hypotheses of a 'roller' of investigations without studio hosting nor of an alternation of hosts are not confirmed. Instead, the internal solution is gaining ground: the name — well-informed sources assure — does not exist yet, but in the rumor mill Giorgio Mottola, Giulio Valesini, Giulia Innocenzi remain in the running. The hypotheses of entrusting the program to former Sabrina Giannini would have faded, just as a succession entrusted to Riccardo Iacona, at work for Presadiretta, starting September 13, or to Massimo Giletti, Federico Ruffo or Peter Gomez, already engaged with their own programs, appears more difficult.

Against "any hypothesis of external host and head author" at the helm of Report, the program's reporters clearly take sides: "Within the newsroom there are already the necessary professional skills, which in these years have made the program's machine work. Any different choice will be judged by us as hostile and aimed at normalizing and taking over the program, is the ultimatum contained in a document sent to the director of Approfondimento, Paolo Corsini, and released to the press. "It is now evident that the announced removal of Sigfrido Ranucci from the hosting of Report has to do only in part with the Lavitola affair and that it actually follows a precise political design" aimed at delegitimizing and besmirching one of the last bastions of freedom and independence of information of the public service, reads the text, in which the journalists essentially say they are ready to go ahead with their own strength. But internal tensions would not be lacking, with part of the team still sided with Ranucci: a document of explicit support for the host would not have passed but would have been sent anyway to Corsini, who on September 2 is preparing to meet the program's newsroom.