L'Europeo
L'Europeo was a prominent Italian weekly news magazine launched on 4 November 1945, by the founder-editors Gianni Mazzocchi and Arrigo Benedetti.[1] Camilla Cederna was also among the founders.[2] The magazine stopped publication in 1995. The title returned to the news-stands in 2001 and 2002 as a quarterly, then as a bi-monthly from 2003 to 2007 and a monthly from 2008, until closure in 2013.
Orientation
L'Europeo is described as independent, secular-oriented and liberal, and the most authoritative in its genre. It combined news, politics, arts, true crime stories and the world of entertainment. The magazine was established in 1945[3][4] and had its heyday in the mid-1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Starting with a circulation of 20,000 it was selling 300,000 copies by 1947.[1]
The magazine paid special attention to photographic image and documentary photography in the tradition of Life magazine in the United States. According to Benedetti: "People look at articles, but read the photos" (Gli articoli si guardano, le fotografie si leggono).[5]
Directed mainly at a middle-class and family readership it was slightly more culturally elevated than its popular rival, Epoca. Its political orientation was centrist, but it was also one of the few magazines during the Cold War willing to openly have dialogue with the Italian Communist Party.[6]
L'Europeo had a circulation of 127,422 copies in 1984.[7]
Scoops
Focussing on news and current affairs, the magazine achieved some impressive scoops, one of the most memorable being Tommaso Besozzi's investigative report in July 1950 on the mysterious death of the Sicilian bandit Salvatore Giuliano, which convincingly disproved official accounts of how the bandit had died.[6] The now famous headline of the article read: "The only thing certain is that he is dead."[8][9]
In March 1954 the magazine denounced the U.S. ambassador in Rome, Clare Boothe Luce, of intrusion into Italian internal politics in a speech she made in January at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. She had mentioned electoral fraud perpetrated by the left at the June 1953 elections, advising the government on how to fight the communists. After the denial of Mrs. Luce, a dispute broke out among various journalists including Nicola Adelfi, author of the first scoop, the famous Indro Montanelli, and Benedetti himself.[10]
In 1953 the Rizzoli publishing company bought the publication, when during the Korean War the original publisher was no longer able to cover rising expenses. The price of paper surged from 100 to 280 lire per kilogram. The original editor Benedetti left the magazine and launched a new weekly, L'Espresso, in 1955.[11]
Known journalists that worked for the magazine in the so-called "Benedetti school of journalism" were Tommaso Besozzi, Enzo Biagi, Giorgio Bocca, Oriana Fallaci and Indro Montanelli, as well as photographers such as Federico Scianna and Oliviero Toscani.[6] Novelist Alberto Moravia wrote weekly film reviews from 1950-1954.[11]
Controversial journalist
Decline
Its decline started in the second half of the 1970s, when
See also
- List of magazines published in Italy
References
- ^ a b c d (in Italian) Tommaso Besozzi e la morte del bandito Giuliano, thesis by Laura Mattioli, Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca 2003
- ISBN 0-203-74849-2. Archived from the original(PDF) on 9 January 2015. Retrieved 9 January 2015.
- ^ "European News Resources". NYU Libraries. Archived from the original on 28 January 2015. Retrieved 24 January 2015.
- ^ "L'Europeo". Prime Media. Retrieved 4 March 2015.
- ^ (in Italian) «L' Europeo» dei ricordi storici, Corriere della Sera, 30 August 2008
- ^ a b c d Encyclopedia of contemporary Italian culture, CRC Press, 2000, p. 293
- ^ Maria Teresa Crisci. "Relationships between numbers of readers per copy and the characteristics of magazines" (PDF). The Print and Digital Research Forum. Retrieved 14 April 2015.
- ^ (in Italian) Di sicuro c'è solo che è morto, Tommaso Besozzi, L’Europeo, 12 July 1950
- ^ (in Italian) Tommaso Besozzi una vita in prima pagina, review for Ordine dei Giornalisti, Consiglio Regionale della Lombardia
- ^ Advertising America: The United States Information Service in Italy (1945-1956), Simona Tobia (2008)
- ^ a b Encyclopedia of Italian literary studies, CRC Press, 2007, pp. 472, 980
- ^ Oriana Fallaci, The Guardian, 16 September 2006
- ^ Oriana Fallaci died, ANSA, 15 September 2006