Journalists, new rules for traineeship. The Ministry of Justice has second thoughts but clarifies nothing

29 April 20231 year ago babelfish

Five months ago, the Ministry of Justice had warned the National Council of Journalists: "This is not good". Now the ministry itself repents and "absolves" the "Reform". But the underlying problem remains. Which is substantial, not formal. To change the rules of journalistic training you need a state law. We cannot replace the legislator. The speech by Maurizio Pizzuto, director of the Prima Pagina News agency

Let's start from the beginning.

“Rome 3 December 2022, signed Giovanni Mimmo Director General Internal Affairs Ministry of Justice” . The object of the letter sent to the President of the National Council of Italian Journalists Carlo Bartoli concerns the “ Request for suspension of the update with new interpretative criteria of art. 34 of the law n. 69/1963 (access to journalistic traineeship ) with effect from 1 January 2023, decided by resolution of the National Council of the Order of Journalists in the session of 8 November 2022".

The Director Giovanni Mimmo , who is the guarantor of the maintenance and work carried out by the National Council of the Order of Journalists by "institutional function", warns the same National Council of the Order that " Various reports have been received by this Directorate General, strongly criticisms , regarding the adoption by this National Council of the resolution of 8 November 2022, containing “Interpretative criteria of art. 34 law 69/1963 on registration in the Register of trainees", invoking a "protective" intervention by this Ministry aimed at suspending its operations".

For the first time Giovanni Mimmo uses a "heavy" term, that of " censures carried out on the work of the council body which focus, under various profiles, on the violation of the principle of legality , concretely declined as respect for the hierarchy of sources, since the adoption of the censored interpretative criteria for registration in the register of practitioners"

All of this "would have configured a method of access that is totally different and in conflict with the regulations in force , attributing to the regional orders to proceed, exceptionally, with the registration in the register of trainees following the verification of the journalistic work carried out regardless of the reference to a news organization. In addition, the possible difference in treatment was reported depending on whether the Territorial Council decides to apply the aforementioned criteria less, thus determining a potential discrimination of aspiring journalists on the national territory ”.

You ask, what does the Ministry of Justice have to do with the internal life of the Order of Journalists?

The Director General Giovanni Mimmo explains it well in his letter: "the Ministry of Justice does not exercise a function of monitoring the legitimacy of Board resolutions, possibly suspending their effectiveness, but has the task of supervising the functioning of the Boards and numerous regulated professions… In this perspective, therefore, this Ministry is required to verify compliance with the parameter of legitimacy in the administrative action put in place by the Council, thus being able to invite it to comply with the legislation in force.”.

So what is it that in the opinion of the Ministry of Justice is wrong in the decisions taken by the Order of Journalists?

“The art. 34 of the law n. 69/1963, entitled " Journalistic practice ", in paragraph 1 establishes that " The journalistic practice must take place in a newspaper, or in the journalistic service of radio or television, or in a daily press agency with national diffusion and with at least 4 professional journalists ordinary editors, or in a national periodical and with at least 6 professional journalists ordinary editors ".

Giovanni Mimmo leaves no room for different interpretations, indeed he goes down hard in some passages of his letter.

“The previous art. 33 provides in paragraph 1 that “Those who intend to start the journalistic profession and who are at least 18 years of age can be registered in the register of trainees. The application for registration must be accompanied by the documents referred to in numbers 1), 2) and 4) of article 31. It must also be accompanied by the director's declaration proving the effective start of the procedure referred to in article 34" .

First substantive observation : "In the opinion of this General Directorate, the aforementioned regulatory complex clearly and unequivocally establishes the requirements and methods for registration in the register of trainees, anchoring it to the direct and unavoidable reference to a newspaper and a director responsible. It is certainly true that in the text of the art. 34 of the professional law notions are contemplated, such as that of "national diffusion", which represent general clauses, the content of which can only be filled with meaning through an hermeneutical activity carried out by the Councils".

In the opinion of the Director General of the Ministry of Justice Giovanni Mimmo, "the council resolution of 8 November 2022 went so far as to update some methods of access to the state exam, essentially attributing to the regional orders the faculty to allow the registration with an "exceptional modality" in the register of trainees to all those who manage to demonstrate that they have exercised paid journalism for 6 months".

"It is therefore – observes the Ministry of Justice – an intervention with a regulatory content not permitted by the legal system , in which the law establishing the professional order has predetermined in a complete and organic way the methods of registration in the register of trainees by reason of a period carried out in a newspaper and with a responsible director, without delegating any autonomous regulatory power to the National Council that has a derogatory attitude to primary sources.

We translate, according to the Ministry which supervises the activity of the National Council of the Order of Journalists, the same Council does not have the power to change these rules.

“Well, although we can share the need expressed by this Council to adapt access to the profession to the profound innovations that have occurred in the publishing sector, we would like to reiterate, however – writes the General Manager Giovanni Mimmo . that these are regulatory changes that are not delegated to the regulatory power of the order, which, with unchanged primary legislation , cannot configure a method of accessing the register of practitioners that is different and conflicting with the current regulatory framework, regardless of the parameters deemed necessary by the legislator" .

But there is also more. Because to this is added the profile of possible discrimination between aspiring journalists , "because that of disregarding the legal criteria for registration in the register has been configured as a mere faculty in the hands of territorial orders, with the possibility of encountering different practices on the national territory , to the detriment of the principle of certainty and uniformity of legal situations".

It is clear, it seems to understand, that the matter needs to be reviewed in some way in the light of these observations, it is no coincidence that the letter signed by Giovanni Mimmo sets very strict stakes: "In the light of these considerations, ultimately, we invite the National Council to review the interpretative criteria resolved on 8 November 2022 in the terms specified above, in order to be consistent with the provisions of art. 33 and 34 of the professional law, as well as art. 36 of the implementing regulation” .

In the light of these things, and above all in the light of the latest decisions taken in the meantime in recent weeks by the National Council of the Order of Journalists, we have proof that the President Carlo Bartoli has responded to the objections of the Director General Giovanni Mimmo , providing the Ministry with the clarifications requested , clarifications that the Ministry today judged to be coherent and convincing, however essentially going back on everything that the director Giovanni Mimmo had written in December.

On 17 March 2023, it is still the Director General Giovanni Mimmo who writes verbatim to the National Council of Journalists: "It should be noted that, in the light of the examination of the text transmitted, the critical factors highlighted by this Directorate General with note prot. DAG no. 244968.U of December 5, 2022 .

“One cannot fail to admit the singularity of the whole story, starting with the sudden rethinking of via Arenula. What left even more dumbfounded the councilors who voted against the resolution – writes Giovanni Innamorati in Puntoeacapo , himself a National Councilor – was the announcement that the Reform Committee will continue as if nothing had happened , as if the address it was working has not been contradicted by the new interpretation of article 34, according to which one can arrive at the state exam with the eighth grade, without ever having worked shoulder to shoulder with other journalists or even having read a manual of ethics ”.

Carlo Bartoli naturally defends his proposal to the end: "The journalistic profession – warns the President of the National Council of the Order – has completely changed, the methods, places and languages have completely changed, and therefore it is necessary to bring the law up to date with the times: if this is not done, there is the risk of dying of asphyxiation ”.

But Bartoli goes even further than this basic general principle, and recognizes with great intellectual honesty what instead we would have expected the Ministry of Justice to say: "It should be specified that it is not a reform – underlines Carlo Bartoli -, but it is a buffer measure, because the reform must be done by Parliament and indeed, we have been pushing for years, for decades, for it to do so".

This is the real background data .

A law is therefore urgently needed, which changes the previous one, otherwise everything risks remaining on the high seas. Only in this way will we really have a reform of the traineeship. Otherwise it's just talk.

LETTER FROM THE MINISTRY OF JUSTICE

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/giornalisti-nuove-regole-per-il-praticantato-il-ministero-di-giustizia/ on Sat, 29 Apr 2023 07:26:22 +0000.