Marco Travaglio

Biography

Travaglio was born in Turin and earned a degree in history from the University of Turin. In 1992 he began to pursue journalism as a career. He started out writing for Catholic publications such as Il nostro tempo ("Our time"), then worked under the renowned journalist Indro Montanelli for newspapers such as Il Giornale and La Voce and gained the attention of Montanelli himself who once said of him: "No, Travaglio does not kill anyone. With a knife. He uses a more refined and not legally punishable weapon: the archives". Since 2006, Marco Travaglio has been a regular guest in the TV program AnnoZero, hosted by Michele Santoro (also mentioned by Berlusconi in the so-called Bulgarian Edict). Recently, Travaglio has contributed as a columnist to prominent national newspapers and magazines, such as La Repubblica, L'Unità (hosting columns such as "Bananas", "Uliwood Party" and "Zorro") and Micromega. He still contributes to L'espresso writing a column by the name "Signornò'". In September 2009 he contributed to the founding of the independent newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano ("The Daily Fact"). He became editor in chief of the paper in 2015.

Political and judicial events of national importance, from Mani pulite to the troubles of controversial political figure Silvio Berlusconi, have been Travaglio's main area of interest. The journalist gained public attention in 2001, after participating in a TV show on state-owned national channel Raidue called Satyricon and hosted by Daniele Luttazzi. He then introduced his bestseller book L'odore dei soldi ("The Scent of Money", co-authored by Elio Veltri), which investigates the origin of Mr Berlusconi's early fortunes. Berlusconi filed a lawsuit for slander, but since the information was accurate and well documented, he was condemned to pay the legal expenses. The show, aired during the campaign for the Italian general election, was heavily criticized by Berlusconi and his party and labeled by them as a politically motivated, non-objective personal attack. After Mr Berlusconi's victory at the elections, Berlusconi banned Luttazzi (together with Enzo Biagi and Michele Santoro, prominent journalists that had criticized Mr Berlusconi's or investigated his history) from state-owned TV shows (Editto Bulgaro), causing a long debate about freedom of information and censorship in Italy.

On 10 May 2008, Marco Travaglio commented on Renato Schifani's election as president of the Senate that one should "simply ask of the second highest office of the state to explain those relationships with those men who have subsequently been condemned for association with the Mafia" on the RAI current affairs talk show television program Che tempo che fa. The statement of Travaglio resulted in fierce negative reactions from Italian politicians, including from the centre left, except for Antonio Di Pietro who said that Travaglio was "merely doing his job". Some called for chief executives at RAI to be dismissed. The political commentator (and future leader) Beppe Grillo supported Travaglio, while Schifani announced he would go to Court and sue Travaglio for slander. Schifani said Travaglio's accusation was based on "inconsistent or manipulated facts, not even worthy of generating suspicions", adding that "someone wants to undermine the dialogue between the government and the opposition."

In 2009, the German Association of Journalists assigned Travaglio its annual award for Freedom of the Press, describing him as a "brave and critical colleague [...] exposing continually the attempts of Italian politicians, especially Silvio Berlusconi, to influence the media to their advantage and to negate critical reports."

Travaglio is a Roman Catholic.

Awards and honors

Publications

Books by Marco Travaglio (usually co-authored with other investigative journalists) include: