Talk:Silvio Berlusconi

Template:Oldpeerreview This is the talk page for Silvio Berlusconi. This article had considerable disputes about whether it achieved NPOV. It has now been updated to try to solve those debates. If you feel that the article is biased or inaccurate, please add a section with specific problems to the end of this page where it can be discussed and a better form can be found.

Old and inactive NPOV discussions have been archived on Talk:Silvio Berlusconi/Archive 1.

New information about POV disputes should be added directly to this page.

Analysing Wealth

Gianfranco, pretty all the sources I can find indicate Berlusconi is the wealthiest man in Italy, Consider this from the Forbes site: http://www.forbes.com/static_html/bill/2002/print/rank.html which puts him at 600 million more than the next Italian. In addition The Economist regularly refers to him as the richest Italian.

Dear Mark, Gianni Agnelli ("Mr. Fiat" - #180 in the list of the page you indicated), together with the members of his family, owns litterally thousands of companies that in turn own houses, cars, boats, helicopters, planes, shops, factories and really any other valuable good, all recorded as separate property of each company, in 5 Continents on 5; maybe then that Forbes cannot consider him the wealthiest man in Italy, because it records only official personal incomes the way they are declared to tax office. But I would wait a minute before considering he's poorer than our homo novus or than other folks there listed.

This kind of datum, the official declaration to tax office (this is a general rule), would not be a concrete indication in our country, since we are usually very... "shy" about our incomes ;-)))

So, my deep esteem for the two papers you mentioned remains unaltered, but I can tell you that I cannot assume those data as effectively describing italian positions on more than a "partial", perhaps formal aspect.

As a common practice, here we evaluate a patrimony upon the number of companies that belong to or are otherwise controlled by the main holder company, up to fourth grade and yes, we do this way because we know that our tax office will not be receiving the veritable truth about our money, but perhaps... a more pleasant interpretations of economical facts.

Moreover: the same tax administration uses similar indexes and effectively does not take into the least account what personally one declares. An alternative index is number of employees or involved workers. Fiat in Italy is a state within the state.

Mr. Del Vecchio, with only a dozen relevant companies, is indeed very high in that ranking, but it is quite difficult to consider that his groups is more important than Benetton's and that respective personal fortunes are not proportionally in a different sequence.

So, you'll have noticed that I didn't say who was the wealthiest one; I just said that Berlusconi is, for sure, one among them. Any italian could not proof it, but would immediately tell you. :-)))

BTW, the owner of one of most important european car factories, declared to tax office that he only owns 12 Fiat "Fiorino" pick-ups (see [1] (http://www.topcars.it/fiorino.htm)) for the staff gardening in his villa. He says he has no other cars but 12 Fiorinos. Funny people these italian tycoons, one of these days I'll have to become one, I like pick-ups!

Seriously, I would perhaps keep the note on a more general tone, despite the not discussed prestige of sources. We are dealing with some data that are not enough "scientific" to describe a precise scheme the way we are used to read here.

Ciao --Gianfranco

I have changed the article a little to state this in terms of the source, i.e. forbes. You're right in that it's impossible to get an accurate net worth of these people. I'm sure all of these men you mention spend a considerable amount of time understating the value of these assets! I enjoyed reading your note! -- Dze27

Disappointing Page

By long custom, of course, I don't edit, but having recently returned from Italy, and eager to learn more about the country, I turned to this page to learn about Silvio Berlusconi, and I must confess that I found it most disappointing. I was neither a Berlusconi supporter or opponent before I read this piece, and I found myself most thoroughly unenlightened by the article in its present form.

There are a handful of essentials that one seeks to learn about any political leader, and this article does a terrible job on all of them except, as I say, on the legal irregularities of various kinds. I do not know, after reading the article, what Berlusconi's policies actually are. I do understand that he is more or less "center right", but this is too vague. I do not know, after reading the article, what his supporters (apparently a majority of Italians, if just barely, at the time of his election) might say about him. What do people like about him? What does he represent to them, what appeal did he have that his opponents did not?

Additionaly, some of the commentary is just transparently biased. "His government has presented a new legislation for a reform of the media, but this actually increased the percentage share that an individual was allowed to control..." I do not know the details of this legisluation, but notice the inherent presupposition that a reform would automatically involve ownership limits.

Notice that since I and many other people believe that the freedom of speech, including the freedom to publish newspapers to as many people who are willing to buy them, the freedom to broadcast television programs to as many people who will watch them, automatically implies that ownership limits are a grave human rights violation.

You need not agree with me on this. Your own view may be that freedom of speech is best guaranteed when people are not allowed to speak too much, or to too many people. Or that freedom of speech is best guaranteed when the government uses force to take money from some people to give it to others in order to promote points of view that would not have been voluntarily supported in the first place.

But what is necessary, for NPOV, is that Wikipedia articles in themselves take neither political position at all. We need to both be able to read the article and understand the facts on the ground, without the implied and presupposed political analysis. Jimbo Wales 21:59, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I do think this article was a bit strange, dedicating about three quarters of it to completely unfounded conspiracy theories, and much of the rest to left-wing ranting. Then again, Wikipedia is heavily left-wing, so it can't really be avoided.

You obviously haven't spent a lot of time around Wikipedia. Saying Wikipedia's heavily left-wing is like saying French people hate America — not only untrue, but a gross oversimplification of a complex relationship. Wally 00:53, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Actually, reading Wikipedia is sort of like a hobby for me. I agree with the metaphor of French anti-Americanism, though: you can call it a gross oversimplification, but it's there, it's pretty obvious, and it's not going away. Anyway, this is way off topic already.

Disappointing - but extremely hard to write

In fact, one of the reasons that make this page rather uninformative is that any public statement about Mr. B. or his tenure appears to turn instantaneously in a partisan row. Avoiding this requires an amount of careful tiptoeing such as to eventually bowdlerize anything that can be said about the man. Please note that avoiding partisan clashes often requires the omission of very well known facts.

Point in case: the current version of the page states that no evidence exists linking Mr. B. to the removal of some well known journalists from national television. What it does not say, however, is that Mr B. very publicly stated that these journalists were biased and should have been taken off the air, and did - equally publicly - express his satisfaction when said removal did in fact happen. All this is factual and readily verifiable, but I have no doubt that would spark an outcry if it were to be inserted in the article.

Anther proof of the problems of this page is your statement:

" ...but notice the inherent presupposition that a reform would automatically involve ownership limits..."

Unless one is very informed on the italian situation he or she would be hard pressed to understand that:

o) Media reform in Italy for the last 10 years or so actually revolves around antitrust issues, because more than 90% of the airwaves ownership is split among state controlled media and the Mediaset group (controlled by Mr. Berluisconi and his family). Antitrust regulation *everywhere* involves ownership limits.

o) Because of the very special position of Mr. B. - who is at the same time owner of the major private media group, and prime minister with a huge saying on what goes on at state television level - the issue also touches heavily on what is called "his conflict of interests", which - by general consensus - has no equals in contemporary western democracies.

o) The law itself comes on the heels of a number of court orders (including one from Italy's supreme court) that mandate one of Mr. Berlusconi's televisions to become a satellite broadcast and awards its current frequencies to another (private) television which - according to the courts - should have won that same frequency from the beginning. The law that the government proposed very conveniently overrides all these court orders, keeps the threatened television on the air, all the while not redressing the original plaintiff.

You see the problem here: all the circumstances I stated above are factual enough and would require very scant commentary, at least from my perspective. A lot of Italians though, will feel that what above is partisan for failing to state some mitigating circumstance - for instance, that the law mentions future expansions of the media offering that would dilute and change the current situation.

This is a totally insane situation that removes any chance of being perceived unbiased and informative about the whole issue (reason for which I refrain to edit)

But a differing point of view is that this article,taken together with its commentary, is in fact extremely informative on the state - and quality - of the Italian discourse about Mr. Berlusconi, for which I feel the man - never shy about being a divisive character - bears a good share of resposibility.

Alessandro

Different ways of dealing

In my opinion the biography of an influent political man inside an Encyclopaedia CAN, and, more then that, MUST, quote also judicial proceedings the politician is subjected to, provided that they are given the appropriate weight in the general context of the article.

In this case the whole Berlusconi's career seems to pivot just around trials and allegations, thus painting the article with an an unmistakable partisan color.

Please look the different way this issue is handled in articles concerning other politicians who had minor or major judicial involvments too (in Italy a could quote Giulio Andreotti, but you have only the embarassment of choosing all around the world).

As a matter of fact the debate around the balance between political and judicial powers is a critical (and very important) issue in the modern democracies, and the issue of the conflict of interests is important as well.

Very often these issues are used as political 'weapons of mass destruction' in political contests: this is perfectly legitimate (in my opinion) but an article of an Encyclopaedia doesn't seem to me the most appropriate place for them.

As far as it concerns the Berlusconi-the-man personal character I think that, beeing italian voters more than 18 years old, they're able to develop an opinion without beeing plagiarized by some TV-spots.

My personal idea is that Mr.Berlusconi has a fighting and rash character, with the indisputable merit of beeing able to let himself understood by his audience: this is not little in a country where politicians usually speek using an alien language.

By the way: I'm not 'berlusconian'.

Marius 13:31, 19 Jul 2004

This is a problem of language. Too much italians are just political supporters, they support parties as they were football teams. You say '...understood by his audience' ? Tell us the profile of the majority of this people! Aren't those the same people that run in a trip when they are told that somewhere in Italy (or abroad) a statue of the Holly Mother lacrimates blood? Aren't those the same people that give millions (of old lira, 1E=2000L) to the magicians for having better life, find love, win the national lottery etc. In Italy we say 'qualunquismo' o 'relativismo assoluto', so many different commanders in the history, that italians think - could not be worser -, but times have changed and people begin to understand that isn't the same, in spite of growing stupidity in the national media. If somebody does not write a good page about -Italian mentality-, many people cannot understand this page. The role of the Vatican in Italy too. The directive of the church whom to vote (for those prayers that always vote those indicated by the church). As for the balance political-judicial, you cannot debate over the balance with a man & company charged and already condemned.

my friend, let me say something (no flames please :-)

not all our italian fellow citizen are so deeply learned, intelligent, high-profiled as you probably are, (or you believe you are), but imho it's not a reason why claiming they're stupid children unable to understand politics.
I don't believe to Holy Mother's lacrimations too, but I respect people who believe them. Democracy is also to respect your neighbour's ideas even if (let me say particularly if) they're different. In dictatorships the problem doesn't exist as everyone think the same way, and all Saints, Holy Mothers, Magicians, Lotteries and other stupid stuff like these is banned by law.
if you want to write a wiki page about italic temper, do it, just be carefull to keep NPOV, as we are an encyclopedia, not a political forum.
semantic issue: when I wrote I'm not berlusconian I meant I don't vote Forza Italia (the Berlusconi's party, for non italian politics aware Wikipedians). I don't vote at all since 20 years and I think I'm not partisan. You can be partisan, but you can't use wikipedia for deploying your beliefs.
if you're interested in contributing to the new article of Silvio Berlusconi (http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvio_Berlusconi) on it.wiki, jump here (http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discussione:Silvio_Berlusconi) and partecipate to the discussion. All contributes are welcome, and in the discussion pages you are not compelled to be NPOV, of course. Bye. Marius @ post 06:56, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Vandalism and propaganda

To protect the article from frequents attacks I propose to allow editing only to Wiki administrators and move proposals of modifications to this discussion page (like italian version)

W.R.

I don't see the vandalism. Current picture is a recent (2004-08-15) picture of Silvio Berlusconi, taken in a public place and with Berlusconi's permission. Surely better than a 15 year old picture that was more opera of photoshop than of a camera. Not so different from this picture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bushaircraft.jpg used in Bush article.

G.P.

I leave to Wikipedia responsibles the judgment whether your real goal in editing is information or propaganda. Only notice that all targets of your attentions are right-wing politicians. I think you're abusing the ospitality of a respected web site to make propaganda.

W.R.

targets? this is paranoia, I just reverted to the picture someone inserted tuesday.

G.P.

This is a small, good test to check if the majority of Wikipedians want that Wikipedia remains an independent source of culture or changes into a stage for leftist ideologists.

I do want independent articles. But pretending that there should not be leftist majority here is a nonsense. This is free stuff, and free is usually promoted and done by altruists. Don't tell me that the rightists like not paid work :)) Not saying there're not rightists, just less. And stop this flames, otherwise italians risk to be banned from wikipedia too (like in many irc channels).

M.P.

W.R.

he was right, this is paranoia. did you ever consider calling a good physician?

Francesco S.

W.R. you call test all in your own? The only way to keep wikipedia indipendent is discussing and contributing. Make your point and try to convince others instead of invoking special measures when not required.

Also in my opinion the locking of the page in the italian wiki is a defeat, and, as I argued there, i strongly oppose going that way unless there's a really unmanageable situation. Worths noting that english version is by far more balanced and informative. --Balubino 17:21, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

100% right, Balubino. But watch the page history: sometime it seemed unmanageable and frustrating. I'm glad I was wrong. Bye.

Satirical edits

Yesterday Mr.Berlusconi's portrait has been replaced by a photo of himself and Mrs. Cherie Blair during a summer party.
Ok, political satire is always welcome in democracy, but what has that got to do with an Encyclopaedia?
Personally I like funny-dressed politicians more than thieving and/or tiresome ones anyway. Marius 06:57, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Trials added

In the "Legal investigations" section I added data on trials completed and in progress. I think the legal terms are correct but I would like a confirmation by some english user law-aware :) Kormoran 22:09, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Micro POV removal

I removed this

"in a public management style reminiscent of a private entrepreneur"

I tried rewriting it as

"in a style which XXXX described as being reminiscent of a private entrepreneur"

but I couldn't find any XXXX. Could someone please provide a link. I think several descriptions of his style of legislative action have been made.

Hi Azikala.

imo you did a great job as the article is now by far better and more NPOV than it was some time ago. I agree to remove NPOV warning, even if, here and there, the anti-B taste re-surfaces. I'm not interested in triggering flames or edit-wars between italians (we've enough on it.wiki!) as I'm not B.'s lawyer and furthermore I see the faults of the guy too. It's evident he pays the scot to be rich, influencial, conservative, and, above all, in office. By sure, when he'll be out, (I guess very soon) all this attention he's subjected to, will fade out. But that's it: it's democracy. A biography is very encyclopedic when the personage is much known, no matter about his real historical relevance. About the micro-POV: you could write:

in a style which his supporters described as being reminiscent of a private entrepreneur

By the way: B's opponents too agree he has a private entrepreneur style, but, ironically, they use this very argument to criticize him :-) Bye. Marius @ 09:36, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Strange language

In the section Trials the word "prescripted" is used; it doesn't seem to mean what the person thought it meant. What is the meaning which is wanted here?

It is probably because of the similarity with the Italian prescrizione. The concept is reaching statutory time limits. This is a technical term which I don't really know how to translate exactly; if you have an Italian-English legalese dictionary at hand, the word is prescritto. AFAIK it might even be different between UK and US English, who knows. Berlusconi has long been accused (fairly, if you ask me) of pursuing delaying tactics and passing laws in order to get his trials ended this way, instead of proving his innocence.

Orzetto 14:03, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Good; that's what I thought. I've been changing it to "the statute of limitations expired" since that's more or less a clear english phrase. There's an english word prescribed, but that has a different meaning. I've also been changing other stuff in the case list. It would really help if people who were translating from Italian would ask about words they aren't sure of. Please could people who know this stuff (or is good at Google :-) help check each case in turn. For example:

"false in budget" sounds like it means "false accounting" but I can't be sure?
"with formulation of doubt" sounds like "not proven", does that verdict exist in the Italian legal system?
"paid offhand" sounds like "paid under the table" or "paid secretly"?

are these right?? Azikala 09:17, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Remaining POV

I am now going to remove the POV notice. There are still some minor issues but not, I think, sufficient to justify a POV notice.

reform - this word is inherently positive and many of Berlusconi's pension changes have been matters of dispute in Italy. Please aim to use either proper names Berlusconi's Sheep Trading Reform or attributed links or more neutral terms.

Freedom of the Press 2004 Global Survey

I don't think that Freedom of the Press can be quoted as authoritative on an Encyclopedia. Italy is a fully democratic country also in the press and media. If someone think different he has to give the evidence of his own Point Of View (=POV), just a quote of a minor survey institute is not factual enough. Re to Adhib's comment in the Page History: I'm not a Mussolini's fan: keep NPOV please. You wrote I'm lacking substantiation I say that Freedom of the Press is lacking substantiation. W

I'm removing the statement "It's should be noted, however, that Freedom of the Press 2004 Global Survey is a disputed source as well."; The reason I do this is that this simply states a view about this organisation without saying who disputes the survey. The statement that it covered was not POV, it was a referenced fact; Freedom House did state what they stated. Rather than simply stating that this is "disputed", we need a statement of who disputes Freedom Houses claim, or who makes a different claim and what that claim is. . More importantly, there is nothing on the Freedom house entry to suggest that it would be biased against Berlusconi. Rather, it seems to be a right wing CIA backed organisation rather likely to support Berlusconi (as an American ally). Before we criticise it's report, we should gather more evidence about the organisation on its own page.

My opinion is that the user who added the paragraph about Freedom of the Press 2004 Global Survey should provide more information about the reason of the downrating of Italy: newspapers owned, control of the TV networks, shares and so on. If one read the article about Berlusconi all these matters are already dealt with, without reaching to the same conclusions of this survey institute. If one believes that FP2004 is more authoritative than Wikipedia then we'd remove the whole section about Media ownership and just put a link to Freedom of Press website with the comment:
if you want to learn about the italian situation of media, please click here (http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/pressurvey.htm)
Regards. Marius @ 04:55, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

P.S.=I suggest an arrangment: to remove from the article the reference to FP2004 and add it to the External links section. @ 04:55, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I personally feel that the meaning of the two suggestions is the opposite of what you seem to feel. When we put a link in the see also section then we are recommending it (here is a good thing to see). That would suggest we agree with Freedom House. If, on the other hand, we just put the plain statement that "Freedom House said XXX" then people can decide for themselves based on their view of freedom house. Finally, if we could put some specific reasons why someone in particular doubts freedom house that would be valuable. The main accusation against Freedom House seems to be that they are CIA backed. Also American/CIA allegiance is seen by many as a problem with Berlusconi. Normally it would seem Freedom House should support Berlusconi and their accusations against him become more striking.

taken overall; if we want to show other views than that of Freedom House then we need some examples of independent external sources which say that Italy's media is free and explanations of why they say so. Azikala 14:59, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hi, thank-you for your reply. I don't care whether FP2004 is backed by CIA or KGB, just I don't see the need to quote it within the article as an authoritative source. My goal is to make the article more NPOV and also to defend the reputation of my Country, Italy. I'm not interested at all in making the article pro-Berlusconi or anti-B. In the article the situation of italian media is, imho, explained deeply enough, so I don't see the need to back the article with external opinions of some survey institute. If some contributor think that in Italy we've not freedom of press, then he, or she, should substantiate his opinion by quoting facts not opinions. You can back any kind of opinion by quoting some particular source, if you search for an appropriate source, the world is large enough, but this is not the wiki NPOV style. My suggestions are just compromise proposals in an attempt to prevent edit wars, given that the best solution, imho again, should be to remove the whole reference to FP2004.

As an end of my post: I find it very odd that you think that some evidence should be produced to demonstrate that in Italy there is freedom of press. Normally one is innocent until it's proven he's guilty, not the contrary! Did you read carefully the article about the control commissions on italian TV networks? Do you know that the two italian largest printed dailies (La Repubblica and Il Corriere della Sera) are more or less anti-B or anti-Government coalition biased? Why don't you look for the the same evidence for other countries? On which basis? On the base FP2004's ratings? Very singular indeed (imho for the third time). Sorry for my being too animate, bye. Marius @ 18:52, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Nothing to be sorry about; as long as we're happy to discuss on the talk page before making a mess of the article then we can probably do a pretty good job together. The most important policy here, it seems to me, is not WP:NPOV, but rather Wikipedia:No original research. As we try to improve this article we should attempt to provide sources for each section and covering different viewpoints. In this case, Freedom House is, even if we want to claim it's biased, the best source we have for the section so far. We shouldn't remove it; instead we should provide other different sources until we can achieve a reasonable balance. Now, your statement, that the daily newspapers are anti-B biased should be something for which we can easily find a source to supoport. However, newspapers are not so important in Italy compared to most other european countries[2] (http://www.nikkei-ad.com/media_data/ad/jpmarket/paperinjp.html) so I don't think that, in its self it's enough to completely discredit Freedom Houses claims.

The WP:NPOV does mean that we have to "write for the enemy". In this case, your "enemy" is Freedom House. Since they are a well known organisation which gives this opinion we should mention and say what they think. If we have a disagreement with them, then simply missing them out will only show that we are ignorant; showing a counter point will make it clear to people where they might be wrong and why they might have chosen to be wrong. In fact the person who put this in was doing a fairly good job of following the fundamental NPOV principle: Where we might want to state opinions, we convert that opinion into a fact by attributing the opinion to someone. We can complete their job, not by deleting, but by also giving other views and sources.

My guess about what annoys you about this, though, is not the statement, but rather the fact that it's at the end of the paragraph as if it were a conclusion. I'd suggest that reordering might be needed. If this put in one of the first paragraphs of the section, it will probably make a better introduction and then followed by the facts as we can find them and/or other points of view.

I've just gone looking for an organisation which might be considered more neutral. A good example would be Reporters Without Borders. They have an Italy report here http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=10148&Valider=OK which seems to me to be a better source. What do you think of this?

Azikala 19:13, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm now logged from a public access point with little time left to reply. Tnx again for the attention you give to the matter. I need more time to examine the sources you've quoted. In the meantime just a couple of considerations:

For an italian who thinks independently and knows from inside the real situation of italian media and democracy is really frustrating and disturbing to be mentioned as a citizen of a country in which human rights are not granted.
Also among B's hardest opponents there are many who shouldn't agree with FP2004 ratings (I hope that they will post some comments here)
It's true that in Italy newspapers are less influent than elsewhere, but I think you underestimate the two dailies I mentioned, as they have a very strong tradition and a large diffusion and furthermore they're owned and backed by very influent and mighty subjects, who also control some TV networks.
I believe that the FP2004 statements should be backed by the figures its rating is based on: channels, shares, controls and so on, otherwise it must be accepted as a kind of oracle, and this is not right, imho, even if this survey institute has a good reputation.

I'll post other comments when I'm back in Italy (hoping to receive other comments as well). Regards. Marius 16:46, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sorry to have caused such a commotion with this Freedom House nugget (and apologies to W for my Mussolini jibe - I jumped to the conclusion after noticing that Il Duce's was the only other page his anon IP had edited). I think the compromise now reached works very well. The Freedom House survey - like all such evaluations - must take into account both quantitative and qualitative information to come to a sensible view. The qualitative aspect should not be enough to dismiss it (though it certainly opens up the potential for criticism). What would be required to substantiate W's desire to cast doubt on FH2004 would be (a) a quote or referenced article in which FH2004's evaluation of Italy is disputed, (b) proof (or plausible hearsay) that the Freedom House evaluation criteria have been applied in a prejudicial manner in the case of Italy, or (c) evidence that the Freedom House survey process is flawed, routinely causing nations with vibrant, free media sectors to be ranked as 2nd class. None of these substantiations was forthcoming. We are left with the impression that W is in fact the source of the alleged dispute, and that his objection is motivated primarily by faith in his country. I can respect that, but would encourage him to dig deeper. Adhib 17:09, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

External links

What was the point behind this link? The slashdot article barely mentions Berlusconi and there is no text about P2P in our text. It just doesn't seem relevant. I removed it.

Italy Approves Jail for P2P Users (http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/05/27/1757247.shtml?tid=123&tid=99)

Azikala

Disputed

I'm going to give this section on the Legal investigations of Berlusconi a month to be improved, then if no sources can be given I'm removing the disputed passages. - Ta bu shi da yu 01:51, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Many crimes

He has been accused for many crimes related to his firms (Mediaset, Fininvest): he was accused of many cases of false accounting, tax fraud, bribery and corruption but the conviction yielded no actual prison sentences, as the trials took so long that they were closed because of the statute of limitations. A number of trials are still running, however.

Who says this?
What is the source?
What trials are still running?

Berlusconi's character and past

Many suspects on his person are risen by his enduring refuse to explain his past: apparently, his empire was founded and developed with money (about 250 millions Euro) coming from nowhere and he never ever explained anything about where that money came from. More, he was part in the last 1970 decade and first '80 years of the freemason lodge "Propaganda 2", a large subversive association aiming to take control over the Italian government. More, in his very home of Arcore, Berlusconi had employed for two years, as stableman, the mafia boss Vittorio Mangano.

"Apparently" his empire was founded from money coming from "nowhere"? That doesn't make any sense! How can that money come from nowhere? Is this implying that he founded his empire on money that he never disclosed his source? If so, what's the big deal here? If I founded an empire, would I wouldn't necessarily disclose the source of my initial capital, and I'd never gather if from illegal sources. This could be quite innocent.
"More, he was part in the last 1970 decade and first '80 years of the freemason lodge "Propaganda 2", a large subversive association aiming to take control over the Italian government." Source? Sounds like a conspiracy theory.
"More, in his very home of Arcore, Berlusconi had employed for two years, as stableman, the mafia boss Vittorio Mangano." - firstly, was this illegal? Secondly, where is the source for this information?

- Italian history 1946-1990 is extremely complicated, the full truth on a number of events is not known yet, and the borders between historical facts and "conspiracy theories" are often very blurred. However, the existance of the P2 lodge and Berlusconi's affiliation to it are proven and undisputed facts, though judgement may vary on the degree of "eversiveness" of such an association. Overall I tried my best to clarify and reference this section.

Mani Pulite affair

During the Mani Pulite affair, many top level executive in Mediaset and Berlusconi's very brother, Paolo, were charged and condemned for tens and even hundreds of accusations of bribery, false accounting, tax fraud and so on: this could be seen as a shield to relieve him from any responsibility, since it would be very odd that a CEO really ignores anything about what is happening within his firms.

Sources please.
Why do we have speculation in here? This can only be added if provide a source of the speculation!

Offshore slush funds

Judicial and customs investigators claim to have uncovered large offshore slush funds controlled by Berlusconi and his companies which were expected to lead prosecutions for financial and tax evasion offences. So far he has avoided prosecution, in part as a result of legislation his government majority has introduced such as de-criminalising "false" accounting and making it more difficult to obtain legal documents from overseas. Documentation from the Swiss government which Italian judges required for a corruption trial were only handed over after Italy agreed not to use them to prosecute Berlusconi for the Tax evasion offences they were accused of.

Sources please!

Pls, NO edit wars

The latest edits demonstrate that in such a sensible article any substantial edit should be filtered through the present discussion page. Otherwise the usual game of:
seen from right side
vs
seen from left side
will start again, and the POV warning should be restored. Marius @ 09:33, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I (81.208.74.180 is me, I sometimes forget to log in) reverted the changes made by 62.101.126.224 because the vast majority of them were POV without a source given. It would be acceptable to write "Berlusconi claims that a vast majiority of the press is center left controlled" but not "It's true that a vast majority of the press is center left controlled". And so on for other similar statements. Regarding the claim that RAI is, even _now_, centre left controlled, I find it hilarious. However, a statement such as "Traditionally, however, in Italy the state television has always been more or less controlled or influenced by the parties who held the majority at a given time" would be acceptable and would be a mitigating circumstance of the influence now exerted by the centre-right over RAI.

I have no objection on the insertion of positive characteristics of Berlusconi as seen from his supporters. Infact I am going to more or less restore that part, which I at first did not notice when I reverted. Massimamanno

Do you think that a statement like:

A general disregard for democratic rules and a tendency towards authoritarianism.

is NPOV, without backing it with some real substantiation? That is acceptable for all italian voters, even if quoted as an opinion of some B's opponents? Pls note that one couldn't write:

some people think that B. is the worst criminal mind of either XX and XXI century

even if some B's political opponents, probably, believe that.

No question that in wiki edits are free, but, IMO, an article with such a long and complicated history should be dealt with by using some more discretion, to avoid useless disputations. I insist that some previous discussion here is highly appropriate. Edit wars are anti-wiki stuff. Marius @ 17:22, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

the original person who edited, wrote this sentence in place of what I wrote: "Being not much democratic and too much authoritative". Now, maybe I enforced the concept too much, however it is clearly stated that this is claimed by his opponents and critics. That part is meant to give the "2 sides" of how berlusconi is seen, in brief. I would not say that berlusconi has very innovative ideas at all, but that's what is stated in the positive comments made by his supporters. However, what would you propose in place of that sentence?

IMO B's administration, democratically elected, fully complies with democratic rules and with the Italian Constitution. On the other hand, the position of B as chief of his own party (Forza Italia) may be considered authoritarian. So the statement could be changed into:

An excessive centralization of Forza Italia, the party founded by Berlusconi

Marius @ 21:50, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This is undoubtedly one aspect. But it must be noted that at least some of his opponents argue that there is something of more profoundly undemocratic in berlusconi's attitude, notably, among others, the Italian poet laureate and lifelong senator Mario Luzi [3] (http://www.ilportoritrovato.net/html/biblioluziint4.html). Would you accept a statement on the general lines that "the moderate side of his opponents note an excessive centralization in Forza Italia" while "some of the more radical ones go as far as suggesting that Berlusconi may lead Italy to some "soft" kind of regime"? The above statements are not very good as a matter of language in the first place, but would you accept the general idea? Massimamanno

This talk can't be a dialog between Massimamanno and me only, and, therefore, I hope that some other user will express his own opinion. I'd just like to fix once again, that wiki is not a forum to deploy political propaganda, not even in a soft style, as, imho, is the style of Massimamanno, whose ideas I respect 100%, but I invite him not to use wikipedia to promote them. We've had the same problem on it.wiki, where we're now editing a draft copy, and its relevant talk page, before validating edits to the article. If Massimamanno is an italian-speaking user, then I invite him to visit this page, and, preferably, to use here, if not the same method, at least the same approach. In the meantime I'll restore the POV warning. Marius @ 05:20, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Mh, I have started editing mostly because there was an 1 month alert to reference parts of the article that were basically correct and valuable for the most part, or they would have been deleted. I think I referenced them, or corrected them when false. Of course I have political views; I try my best to be neutral but it's clear that they may at times "sneak" into what I write. In such cases I'm happy to be corrected, and I think that's the way an article about politics should be written, as a dialectic process between supporters of both views, all of them trying their best to achieve neutrality. Otherwise the only persons who could write about politics are persons with no definite political views.

About the italian article, I've seen it, and seems to me very poor. Restricting access to a wiki page is, in my opinion, an inherent contraddiction and an admission to defeat.

About the POV alert you introduced: what specifically would you like to be changed? What are the POV points you see? I think it would be fair from your part to give a chance to ponder your objections, since you introduced the alert.

reorganization, refactoring

I have taken the liberty of reorganizing this article; I felt it was getting unwieldy. For one thing, I have tried to consolidate the information about his business undertakings in one section and that concerning his political career in another. (IMO, the business section is pretty anemic and could use some additional material).

Also, seeing that they were making the article overly long (>32Kb) and cumbersome, I have moved "Legal investigations of Berlusconi" and its subsections on Trials and so into a temporary sub-document:

/Berlusconi and the law

At the top of this section was an inline comment from someone:

This section contains controversial paragraphs which are not backed up with sources. The section needs to be updated with links and references or corrected before it can be seen to meet Wikipedia's standards.

I agree, and furthermore propose that if this information is to be reintroduced into the encyclopedia it be done so in a separate article, ie "Silvio Berlusconi and the law" or whatever.

Finally, I have taken the liberty of commenting out the NPOV tag, but if anyone feels strongly that the article is still biased, they are welcome to uncomment it. -- Viajero 17:17, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Too much liberty. Some of your proposals I am willing to discuss but take into account that 1) George W. Bush's page is, for example, 72Kb long and 2) discussion about berlusconi's reaction to legal issues, and legislative action connected or perceived as connected with them has dominated the political debate in Italy in the past 3 years, so something must be said about it in the main article.

I agree, however, that this article needs some reorganization and I am willing to discuss proposals

the "disputed" tag has been set by an admin (Ta bu Shi Da Yu) who should come back one of these days to say something about the issue. If he does not, the tag will possibly be removed.

the "POV" tag is currently being discussed.

Ok, I merged some of my edits back into the earlier version with the Legal section, but I would still suggest that it might be useful to spin this off into a separate article, with a course a brief overview of the issues in the main text. As it now stands, it is a very dense looking section and all of those warnings make it look worse. Couldn't we take that section offline for awhile and work on it in the Talk space? There is precedent for proceeding this way. Wikipedia articles are by definintion works in progress, but when too much of the scaffolding is visible that isn't good. -- Viajero 23:06, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

If nothing is said about his trials and related issues in the main article people will flock and add something every other day. I would work on it while it is there. As for remoing the warnings, I mostly referenced the section and was waiting for the admin's approval but I think there should be no more factual accuracy disputes, maybe POV issues which I am not aware of, so the disputed label could be removed, I was just waiting some more.

While I do not completely agree with your reorganization, I will tentatively leave it in place since it appears to have some merit, especially in the division between business and political career

"Media ownership" is a big issue, it earned some pronunciations from the european council and debates in the european parliament and I am unsure if it fits in the general class of "berlusconi and controversy" which mostly was meant to deal with the gaffes and minor diplomatical incidents mostly caused (imo) by inexperience in international diplomacy, and contained some points of appreciation/criticism on berlusconi related to personality matters. If it is left there, should be moved to the first part of the paragraph since it is the major international source of controversy on Berlusconi, while the "strange remarks" he sometimes makes, however they may be fit for the media attention, are not generally seen as a so big issue.

in the last paragraph, controversy about Berlusconi's personality is understated. Overall, I still think that paragraph fits best in "berlusconi and controversy" but will take somet time to think about it before editing. -- Massimamanno

reply to Massimamanno

Massimamanno wrote:

If nothing is said about his trials and related issues in the main article people will flock and add something every other day. I would work on it while it is there. As for remoing the warnings, I mostly referenced the section and was waiting for the admin's approval but I think there should be no more factual accuracy disputes, maybe POV issues which I am not aware of, so the disputed label could be removed, I was just waiting some more.

If people see a link to a second article, even if it is a work-in-progress in the Talk space, they will be less likely to add information to the main article. As for "waiting for an admin", this isn't necessary; wikipedia doesn't work that way. I am also an admin, but neither I nor any other admin has any particular authority about article content (what we do have are certain tools to help resolve disputes). However, I do feel strongly that controversial material should either referenced or moved out of the article until such things are resolved. These warnings look very bad.

I am unsure if you understood what I said, or this article's history. The section on legal investigations needed to be referenced. Now it has been. Before removing the warning, though, I was waiting for the consensus of the person who added the warning. Who, also, happened to be an admin. But, first and foremost, it was a matter of courtesy and, sort of, democracy. Now I am removing the warning.

While I do not completely agree with your reorganization, I will tentatively leave it in place since it appears to have some merit, especially in the division between business and political career

Ok, but I want you to understand what I am trying to do. Over and over again on Wikipedia, these big, important articles to which many people contribute end up looking like ragged quilts, with bits and pieces of information ("factoids") inserted in an almost random way throughout the text. In addition to supplying various kinds of information, an encyclopedia article, IMO, should also have a well-organized narrative with a certain structural unity. One way to do this is to break into down into topical sections; another is to rewrite the material from scratch as an organic whole, but this takes consumate skill as a editor. What I found yesterday was an article that -- in one way or another -- needed extensive organization.

I disagree with your method of working, but, given the way wikipedia works, I have no choice but to accept, revert or edit what you write. Being a very controversial article, the one on Berlusconi must in my opinion reach an acceptable equilibrium state in content, before being tweaked in form and shape. This is the same way the articles on other controversal leaders are being worked, and suggestion to break the article are being rejected until there is consensus on what is to be written and what not in the first place, and what is to be kept in the main article and what not in the second place. G.W.Bush is 72 Kb, Bill Clinton is 49 Kb, Tony Blair is 46 Kb, etc. Berlusconi is a media mogul AND a twice prime minister of Italy, and the page is not too long. In the end, maybe, the list of his trials may have to be moved, but not, is my firm opinion, the disussion of them and related issues.

As for the legal section, it just seems rather dense and reader-unfriendly. An encylopedia article on a complicated issue should, IMO, first and foremost offer a good overview of the subject and not necessarily strive to be a comprehensive repository, ie, not offer "too much" information (although listings also have their place). IOW, we should distill the legal section to a couple of paragraphs, with salient examples, and move the rest, especially that list, to an ancilliary article for people who want more. This would be a "reader-friendly" approach.

I disagree

I see your point. A separate section on Media ownership might also be appropriate.

I am not sure what you mean by here "understated. Too little information? In any case, some of the material could go elsewhere, but factoids like his facelift need to given a suitable home or left out. -- Viajero 13:20, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It was mildly stated already (the part on controversy about him centralizing power, not his facelift and hair implant) looking for a difficult compromise. There was an ongoing discussion on that sentence and you further understated it without bothering to look at the discussion. That may be the way you work on all of your edits. Sure that way you can gather many edits to show on your personal page but do not expect them to last long, or have a positive effect.

Massimamanno: For someone who has made like twenty edits in the main article space, all of them in this article, you speak with impressive authority about "how things are done here"; I don't have your self-assurance about such matters even after contributing for more than a year. You may know a great deal about Berlusconi and you may be Italian, but neither of those factors makes you the final arbiter of what this article should look like. As I am sure you realize, this article needs work. It is missing information in some places; in other places, the existing material needs to be presented in a better way. If you don't fix these things, others will. Just because the GW Bush article has bloated to 72Kb does not mean clarity and concision should be sacrificed here. Wikipedia is not a dumpster.

You wrote above:

I disagree with your method of working, but, given the way wikipedia works, I have no choice but to accept, revert or edit what you write.

Yep, that the way things work here. Welcome to Wikipedia. -- Viajero 15:17, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Welcome to this article. If you wish so you can find basic information (in english) on what should be said on controversies about Berlusconi in the documentary movie "Citizen Berlusconi" aired in the USA by PBS and broadcast in all Europe, except Italy.

I never said (or thought) I'd be the final arbiter on anything. Actually, it's you who popped up and thought you'd change everything, while obviously knowing little about the subject, just relying on supposedly superior editing skills. Now, let me bring serious matters back on top in this discussion page.

POV issues

Since there is no real POV discussion, but still the article is disputed, I am going to change the short POV to long POV, the one saying "please help by report possibly non-neutral passages". Since the issue has been raised, however, I have a point on a possible right-side POV which I would like to be addressed:

In the meantime the competition between his own company Mediaset and RAI has become more intense with both groups trying hard to increase their own market share.

Source? I could not find any. It seems to me very hard to prove this statement, or for that matter its contrary, which would be

In the meantime the competition between his own company Mediaset and RAI has decreased and both groups seem to have agreed to some kind of division of their market shares.

My personal impression, which is of course worth nothing, is more inclined towards the second statement. However, in the absence of any sources, wouldn't it be safe to say nothing about the issue, and just assume that the level of competition between RAI and Mediaset hasn't increased or decreased? If someone feels that, even if no sources can be found, something must be said about the issue, what about a statement like

There are no signs of a decrease in competition for market shares between Mediaset and RAI (since Berlusconi went in charge).

Any thoughts or sources?

A source which could be used to support the view of a decrease in Mediaset-Rai competition is an Italian Antitrust report (http://www.agcm.it/agcm_ita/DSAP/DSAP_IC.NSF/34b9a84289cc05f7c125652a00315c5d/df5c6772e00be226c1256f58003be065?OpenDocument) (in Italian, of course). It's actually an "indagine conoscitiva", but I really don't know how to translate it so I called it a "report". ;)

Anyway, currently I believe that the article's bias (or perceived bias) originates from the selection of "facts" rather than the way tehy're actually portrayed. A different selection of facts (and a different selection of omissions) could have a very different result. For example, the whole article revolves around his career as a politician and not around his career as a businessman (or, for what matters, a soccer team owner - I'm joking), and some traits of Berlusconi's personality are usually considered inappropriate for a politician but indifferent (or even appropriate) for a businessman.

By the way, Berlusconi did not found Italia 1 and Rete 4 as the article apparently implies (I think they were founded by Rusconi and Mondadori respectively, although I might be mistaken).

Audio file

What's the problem with including a pronunciation file? (though I prefer {{audio}} for this) David.Monniaux 12:14, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Is there still any problem with this page?

I've just completed a thorough reading of this article after noticing its NPOV warning and discovered, rather to my delight, that I was unable to find examples of significant POV writing in either direction, for or against him (unless one would like to construe the length at which his legal troubles and criticisms are discussed POV, but I submit that he is a very controversial Prime Minister and he does have an arseload of legal issues, and the fact that so much information exists on these subjects is not our fault). Unless anyone within, say, the next week has an outstanding objection, I see no reason for the POV warning to remain. It is guilty of the reverse of its intention — rather than ensuring questioning and critique of a suspect article, it casts doubt upon a legitimate one. Wally 23:17, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm the user who put the notice, the reason being that, imho, B's grip on italian media is highly overestimated here. However I've no obiection to remove it, given that the NPOV is not, imho again, a black or white issue, and this article can be regarded as NPOV enough. As a final consideration: yes, B has a long judicial history, but here in Italy we've a lot of politicians with similar pedigrees, but B's one has been strongly enphasized by his opponents, for his being in office. Marius @ 06:37, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Ongoing event tag

Why does this article carry this tag? Evil Monkey∴Hello 08:14, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

I suppose that's because of the results of the recent administrative elections (April 3-4), which caused an upheaval of sorts in his party and alliance. This goes beyond the somewhat longish undeclared crisis which ended when he formed his new government; the whole "house of freedom" strategy for the upcoming 2006 elections is still being redefined, for example right now it's said that he might consider retirement or a reduced role, there are plans to merge the whole "house of freedoms" alliance in a single party, etc. Anyway, I think the tag might be removed.

Retrieved from "https://academickids.com:443/encyclopedia/index.php/Talk:Silvio_Berlusconi"

Talk:Silvio Berlusconi

Analysing Wealth

Disappointing Page

Disappointing - but extremely hard to write

Different ways of dealing

Vandalism and propaganda

Satirical edits

Trials added

Micro POV removal

Strange language

Remaining POV

Freedom of the Press 2004 Global Survey

External links

Disputed

Many crimes

Berlusconi's character and past

Mani Pulite affair

Offshore slush funds

Pls, NO edit wars

reorganization, refactoring

reply to Massimamanno

POV issues

Audio file

Is there still any problem with this page?

Ongoing event tag

Navigation

Search

Toolbox

Personal tools