Jamie Rubin:
In the film you had his lawyers, his very own lawyers in his trial, going back as Parliamentarians to change the laws to his advantage. Could that happen in any other country or is that pretty unique to Italy?
Alexander Stille:
Maybe somewhere in South America. But I'm not aware of it happening in any advanced democracy. It's a very, very anomalous and peculiar situation. They literally would spend two or three days a week in Milan defending Berlusconi, in their black, lawyerly robes, and then fly back to Rome and then re-write the laws that would then short-circuit the very trials in which he was a defendant. And that happens in all sorts of areas including business areas, economic legislation.
Jamie Rubin:
How has Berlusconi been able to get away with seeming to manipulate the media, the television, manipulate the Parliament. All for the sole purpose of protecting him from either criminal prosecution or from losing an election. Why have the Italians stood for this?
Alexander Stille:
I think it's important to understand that Berlusconi represents a significant chunk of the Italian electorate. There was an extremely complicated political upheaval in Italy in the early 1990s in which because of pent-up corruption in the system the traditional parties that had governed Italy for 45 years were swept out of power. And essentially put out of business by these corruption investigations that happened in the early '90s.
Jamie Rubin:
Which Berlusconi supported at the time? He was thought of as a reformer, right? At that time?
Alexander Stille:
At least nominally. But anyone who knew Berlusconi's career well, knew that he was very closely linked to these same parties. And that he would very quickly find himself the object of investigation. But, what that meant was, that you had at least 50 percent of the electorate that became politically leaderless and without representation. It was only natural that someone was going to fill this vacuum. And only right that someone would fill this vacuum. The problem was that because the whole situation was so rapid and disorderly, that the only person who was in a position to fill this void was the richest man in the country, and a person who an enormous "machine" in place. It was a corporate machine. Three private television stations. A massive advertising company that was represented all over the country. And so what happened was that the people who actually were running his company became the campaign machine. For example, 50 members in the first Berlusconi Parliament of 1994 were actually employees of his in the advertising arm of his company. So you had a company replacing these parties. But because there was an electorate that did need representation, people accepted this. Because they wanted a moderate-to-conservative person representing them. They felt that Berlusconi, because he was a successful businessman, represented something new.
Jamie Rubin:
The same old Italian politics.
Alexander Stille:
The same old politics. And he had a lot of the appeal that someone like Ross Perot had for many Americans when he said, Look, I'm a practical businessman. Let me under the hood of the car and I'll fix the engine. And Berlusconi played that up very successfully. He also is a charismatic person who for many electors, has a lot of the charismatic charm that Ronald Reagan did for many Americans. He has a kind of bounce in his step and a optimism that people find attractive.
Jamie Rubin:
And he has a life story. I mean, let's face it, he was a lower-middle-class man who "made good." A self-made entrepreneur. I mean doesn't that appeal to the small shop owners, the small businessmen in Italy who saw him as an example that privilege isn't required to succeed in Italy?
Alexander Stille:
Sure. Of course, if you look closely at Berlusconi's career you understand that he's not nearly as self-made as he likes to make himself out as. He enjoyed political backing all along the way. And without that, would never have succeeded. To give you a small example: his first really big real-estate fortune was made in a development outside of Milan. It was going nowhere because the local airport planes flew over the area and no one wanted to buy the apartments. He used political influence to have the routes of the planes changed ...
Jamie Rubin:
That's not just clever?
Alexander Stille:
Well, clever. But there may have been some money exchanged in making that happen.
Jamie Rubin:
But isn't there an appeal he has for Italians, who have always seen politics run by the privileged classes. That he did pull himself up?
So-called from his bootstraps and made good.
Alexander Stille:
Yes. Now he certainly represents part of Italy. And also, I think, it's important to understand that the centrality of his being the head of private television is really important in ways beyond the control of information itself. There was only public TV in Italy up until the mid-1970s. And it was dominated by the political parties. He brought in an entirely different kind of new culture into Italy. He brought into Italy the culture of DALLAS, DYNASTY, BAYWATCH, WHEEL OF FORTUNE.
Jamie Rubin:
And it worked.
Alexander Stille:
And it worked. It sold. It produced jobs. It created kinds of entertainment that hadn't existed. It created a series of values of success which Berlusconi incarnates. And it was part of a system of values that replaced much more ideological values, and a much more ideological society.
Jamie Rubin:
Let's talk about Berlusconi's power over the TV. Directly or indirectly, he controls 90 percent of the viewers who watch TV in Italy -- through the private channels that he owns, and the government-controlled channels. But if you're an Italian sitting in Italy watching television, do you get objective news? Do you learn about the truth about the Italian economy, Italian politics? What's going on in the rest of the world? I mean, are they fed propaganda or is it only when it comes to Berlusconi that the news channels get cautious?
Alexander Stille:
Well, I think the problem is it's very hard to distinguish them. When you're running the country almost everything can reflect badly or well on you. Berlusconi was not, let's say, the protagonist of the Iraq war, but he was an interested party. So that -- for example, the portrayal of peace marches. For example, there was a huge peace march in the middle of February which dominated many Italian's attention. It wasn't shown on Italian TV.
Jamie Rubin:
But despite all that, in Italy they were massively against the war in Iraq, right?
Alexander Stille:
Yes. It wasn't able to affect public opinion. So you could argue that even controlling TV, it's certainly not absolute. And there's a lot of information in Italy, but it's primarily in written form. What I think is troubling to me is that you can say there's a lot of freedom of information in Italy. You can find almost any point of view represented if you scour the book shops or read the the vast number of newspaper that appear every day.
But on television you don't have that same pluralism. Television, whether we like it or not, is the way that a vast majority of Italians, a vast majority of Americans, get their news. And there there's much much less pluralism and the control is much more total exercised by Berlusconi.
Jamie Rubin:
But is it communist-style TV? Are they getting the basic truths about what's happening in Italy or the world? Is it so much propaganda or is it just when it comes to Berlusconi's interests, they try to protect them?
Alexander Stille:
Well, to give you an idea. I mean if this matters during election coverage. And I think we all appreciate how important that is. If you watch one of Berlusconi's channels -- the anchorman on one of his channels wept with joy when Berlusconi was elected on air.
I've watched programs in which he's just literally insulted the political opposition. Called them liars. Called them enemies. Called them communists. Called them all sorts of things. Berlusconi will get ten times more coverage. And I saw his main political adversary was given a little sound byte in which he was portrayed at a fish market talking about how to cook fish instead of talking about the political issues of the day. You know that may seem laughable to many people. And many Italians will tell you, oh, I actually watch that for amusement. But it's not so funny if you consider that, for example, there are statistics that show that the people who watch Berlusconi's channels vote overwhelmingly for his party.
And the amount of TV they watch is directly proportioned to the percentage in which they vote for Forza Italia, his party. You realize that control of television does translate into votes, and translates into power in ways that should make, I think, everyone uneasy.
Jamie Rubin:
We are describing, almost, a modern-day Mussolini who controls all the levers of power: Parliament, the press. Who is able to stop prosecutions of himself. But do you believe that modern-day Italy has freedom of the press or not?
Alexander Stille:
Well, I think it has a partial freedom of the press. I think that what is interesting and a little scary about Berlusconi is that he's understood, maybe more than any politician, that if something doesn't appear on television it doesn't exist in our world. And so there is freedom of the press because you can find it in print form, if you look at certain newspapers or in certain books. But you won't find it on TV. And so you have a partial freedom. At the same time, Italians are not stupid. And they do have many democratic freedoms. And if they're really unhappy they will vote him out of office. They did vote against him in regional elections recently, which shows that they will base their votes on results. And if those results aren't forthcoming, they eventually will distinguish between all of the stuff they're hearing on TV and the reality they see in their own minds.
Jamie Rubin:
So you're saying that democracy's working but it's threatened by his power? Would that be a way of putting it?
Alexander Stille:
Yes. I think it's a partial incomplete democracy which is working very badly at the moment. And I think what is troublesome and should be of concern to all of us is that it's setting a model for the way democracy works in our world. In which private interests are allowed to have a much greater share of public life than they have anywhere else. And I think that's a model that people get used to that, and say, Well, if they can do that in Italy, then what's the big deal if I do it to a lesser degree here in France? Or in England or in this country? And so I think it's setting precedents that are unhealthy for a democracy.
Jamie Rubin:
How much do you think the Berlusconi model is playing out in other parts of the world? We see Rupert Murdoch have enormous influence in the media. We've seen Senator Corzine from New Jersey, a self-made multi-millionaire. We've seen Mayor Bloomberg in New York City use his own money to run for office. Do you think Berlusconi is a uniquely Italian phenomenon? Could that happen here what you're describing? Or are there more checks and balances in our system than in Italy?
Alexander Stille:
Well, I think the thing that makes Berlusconi a really interesting, important figure is, that he crystallizes -- in a very dramatic way -- problems and issues that exist in all modern democracies now. In every society, including ours. Money, media, and political power are very closely connected. And the figures you mentioned, are all part of the trend in which people have figured out that the ability, let's say, to buy TV time and bypass the usual filters between the public and political figures, are very powerful devices that people can use to attract attention, attract voters. And get influence in our society.
In Italy it exists in a much kind of nuder and cruder way. But, I think people everywhere, and this country as well, have a very dismaying feeling that politics is going over their heads, is being decided by wealthy interests that don't take them into consideration. And are bending the legislative process in their own behalf. And so, I think Berlusconi is a very sort of interesting canary in the coal mine for all of us. He shows the way in which these issues can crystallize in a very powerful way.
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