Access to public broadcasting and media freedom are essential pillars of a functioning democracy, not only as information outlets for the electorate, but also as a check on government through public scrutiny. In Italy, however, claims to protect “neutrality” and “media independence” have been used as a justification for executive interference. Under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s administration, actions taken to reform media policy and governance highlight a pattern consistent with aggrandizement, raising concerns that the Italian government is trying to silence negative press rather than protect press freedom. 

According to Nancy Bermeo, a comparative political scientist and author of On Democratic Backsliding, executive aggrandizement occurs when elected executives weaken institutional checks through legal changes over time and reduce the ability of opposition to challenge executive power. With this context in mind, covert repression of the media through legal channels is very effective in limiting accountability for the executive and slowly eliminating opposition. This fosters a situation where accountability is replaced with an unchecked executive. Evidence has shown that media coverage, especially negative coverage, is a necessary function of a healthy democracy.

Looking at media freedom in Italy on a general scale, the World Press Freedom Ranking puts Italy at position #49 in regard to media freedom. The WPFR compiles a list of 180 countries annually, ranking them 0-100 on the basis of cases of abuse against journalists as well as analysis by press freedom experts. This is on the lower end for Europe, falling behind France, Spain, Germany and the UK. Looking at the recent history of its ranking, from 2021 to 2025, Italy has fallen from a score of 76 to 68 points. This drop in ranking is no surprise considering Italy’s action against public broadcasting networks in recent years. In May of 2024, Italian journalists staged and participated in a day- long strike, accusing Meloni of stifling free speech and intensifying political interference in the media. Collective action is a prime signal that both autonomy of the press is severely declining, and that this is a longstanding broad pattern of the executive slowly encroaching on the media’s freedom.

In a press release on January 9th, 2026, the administration’s agenda to defend freedom of the press was made clear: to protect media neutrality. Legal action by the executive and media governance clearly contradicts formal statements and press releases. Most notably, RAI’s oversight committee is not of independent nature like other public broadcast channels would normally be, like the BBC. The agency responsible for oversight, Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni, has direct supervision over RAI and all other public networks, with commissioners appointed by parliament and the president appointed by the Italian President. Oversight of publicly funded media alone stifles the ability for it to foster a multitude of ideas and forums of democratic discourse. The ability of the government itself to appoint the individuals who regulate media adds an additional layer of pressure from the federal government to push an agenda. An example of this caught international attention by the AP International, when RAI cancelled prominent anti-fascist leader Antonio Scurati’s monologue on Liberation Day, a celebration of the end of Nazi occupation of Italy and its freedom from fascist rule, due to concerns of pushing a political agenda in the Meloni administration’s eyes. This action in particular highlights an aggressive and almost overt act by the executive to legally suppress dissent from the media under the guise of protecting neutrality. 

Italy, under Meloni’s administration, illustrates textbook executive aggrandizement. Her administration’s efforts to oppress media criticism, framing it as protecting neutrality, of media neutrality and freedom of speech makes this clear. As Bermeo’s framework outlines, Meloni’s use of legal mechanisms of control over public media channels like RAI show how democratic checks can be weakened over time through formal legal methods, rather than through obvious oppression. The persistence of these actions threatens democracy in Italy, setting a dangerous precedent for interpretation of legal statutes that allow the executive branch to abuse their authority over the media when they feel threatened by criticism. Information control is a dangerous step toward democratic decline, and can be noted in other nations as one of the first indicators, and we have seen this narrative play out before in Hungary and Poland. 

Works Cited

Balmer, Crispian. “Italy’s state-TV journalists strike over government interference.” Reuters, 6 May 2024, https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/italys-state-tv-journalists-strike-over-government-interference-2024-05-06/

Bermeo, Nancy. “On Democratic Backsliding.” Journal of Democracy, vol. 27, no. 1, January 2016, pp. 5–19. https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/on-democratic-backsliding/

“Conferenza Stampa Di Inizio Anno Del Presidente Meloni.” www.governo.it, 12 Jan. 2026, www.governo.it/it/articolo/conferenza-stampa-di-inizio-anno-del-presidente-meloni/30709.

Patterson, Thomas E. “News Coverage of the 2016 General Election: How the Press Failed the Voters.” HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series RWP16-052, Harvard Kennedy School, December 2016. https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/news-coverage-2016-general-election-how-press-failed-voters

Reporters Without Borders. “RSF Index 2025.” Reporters Without Borders, 2025, https://rsf.org/en/index?year=2025. Accessed 2026.

Stato, Istituto Poligrafico E. Zecca Dello. LEGGE 31 Luglio 1997, N. 249 – Normattiva. 31 July 1997, www.normattiva.it/uri-res/N2Ls?urn:nir:stato:legge:1997-07-31;249&.

Wójcik, Anna. “How the EU Can Defend Media Freedom and Pluralism in Hungary and Poland.” German Marshall Fund of the United States, 2 Nov. 2022, https://www.gmfus.org/news/how-eu-can-defend-media-freedom-and-pluralism-hungary-and-poland