Fanpage: Italian website that went from gossip to award-winning scoops(theguardian.com)
theguardian.com
Fanpage: Italian website that went from gossip to award-winning scoops
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/10/fanpage-the-italian-website-that-went-from-gossip-to-award-winning-scoops
46 comments
I did a job interview with them 10 years ago for a software developer position. (I live in the Naples area). At the time, I just graduated from college. The test was about JAVA and it was really hard. They also had a piece of their infrastructure written in Scala, that was bleeding edge at the time for such a small company. In the end I failed the interview but, like all hard interviews, I felt somehow satisfied by finally knowing what i didn't know. Kudos to them
> members of an elite Italian police squad raided the Naples office of small news website. The previous day it had revealed links between elected politicians and organised groups in an illegal waste dumping racket.
This is so Italy it hurts. A group of journalists investigates a possible collusion between the mafia and politicians, and the police raids the journalists' office instead.
This is so Italy it hurts. A group of journalists investigates a possible collusion between the mafia and politicians, and the police raids the journalists' office instead.
>This is so Italy it hurts
That's not really Italy. Peak Italy would be police raiding journalists with actually good reasons because published evidence was obtained illegally. Indeed, wiretapped evidence routinely get published in breach of the law.
That's not really Italy. Peak Italy would be police raiding journalists with actually good reasons because published evidence was obtained illegally. Indeed, wiretapped evidence routinely get published in breach of the law.
As long as journalists don’t incite or induce others to break the law or do so themselves, why does it matter how they gather the relevant information to support reporting on factual events? I’m not sure I follow your reasoning.
> This is so Italy it hurts
You clearly have no idea on what you are talking about.
You clearly have no idea on what you are talking about.
As an Italian, I have to point out that Fanpage is mainly Buzzfeed-level trash. I am surprised The Guardian is holding Fanpage in such high esteem.
I am not a leftist but I do appreciate good reporting from the whole political spectrum, including often the Guardian. Still, I wouldn't touch the steaming pile of BS that Fanpage is with a ten-foot pole!
I am not a leftist but I do appreciate good reporting from the whole political spectrum, including often the Guardian. Still, I wouldn't touch the steaming pile of BS that Fanpage is with a ten-foot pole!
So interesting that we're comparing to buzzfeed, who also has a fairly good investigative journalism group!
Here's a rather interesting one: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/collection/wwfsecretwar
Here's a rather interesting one: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/collection/wwfsecretwar
This meme needs to stop. It is pure legitimacy-washing and I can’t believe the HN crowd falls for it.
It’s like Exxon donating a pittance to an environmental protection fund and calling it even.
I wish we would stop giving them credit for “helping” when they’re the ones causing and profiting from the damage in the first place.
It’s like Exxon donating a pittance to an environmental protection fund and calling it even.
I wish we would stop giving them credit for “helping” when they’re the ones causing and profiting from the damage in the first place.
They won a Pulitzer last year and were finalists 3 other times. I don’t think this is quite the stretch you’re making it out to be.
BuzzFeed News is indeed a very different beast to BuzzFeed proper.
BuzzFeed News is indeed a very different beast to BuzzFeed proper.
iratewizard(3)
I do agree with you on the Buzzfeed-level articles. They're entertaining, as most news websites nowadays.
> The story sent shock waves through the political establishment and helped make fanpage.it what it is today: one of Italy’s most successful news sites.
The Guardian is making the case that the most successful = good journalism, great scoops etc. which sounds a bit off to me.
> The story sent shock waves through the political establishment and helped make fanpage.it what it is today: one of Italy’s most successful news sites.
The Guardian is making the case that the most successful = good journalism, great scoops etc. which sounds a bit off to me.
Fanpage publishes lots of crap, but it is also one of the few newspapers/websites still doing investigative journalism in Italy.
For instance: https://www.fanpage.it/attualita/an-undercover-investigation...
For instance: https://www.fanpage.it/attualita/an-undercover-investigation...
Buzzfeed makes money from the quizes and other crap so they can make serious journalism - which nobody is prepared to pay for.
>Naples office
>”Readers began to deliver pizzas to our office as a gesture of gratitude for what we had done.”
I bet those were good pizzas!
>”Readers began to deliver pizzas to our office as a gesture of gratitude for what we had done.”
I bet those were good pizzas!
I would not be brave enough to eat a random pizza showing up at the office after running a scoop on the mafia.
My thoughts exactly!
Meh, as an italian i find the quality of fanpage journalism to be pretty low. It's mostly clickbait and "let's send a leftist to a right-wing protest and see if they get beaten up or catch somebody doing nazi salutes".
I'm still happy they exist and are succeeding, but i feel that real investigative jouranlism is dying in Italy. With the fall of newspaper sales most outlets are just incentivized to publish low quality clickbait, or government propaganda if they live off of government grants.
I'm still happy they exist and are succeeding, but i feel that real investigative jouranlism is dying in Italy. With the fall of newspaper sales most outlets are just incentivized to publish low quality clickbait, or government propaganda if they live off of government grants.
Random question: could you suggest some good Italian journalism to follow? Right now I just follow Repubblica and a handful of technology journalists I've found through reading articles there.
I'm a security researcher and am learning Italian with the goal of being able to speak at a conference there in the next year or two. As my language skills improve I've been trying to find some good cybersecurity and long form reporting as well as Instagram/Twitter users to follow to force Italian into my daily life and hopefully begin picking up technical jargon and colloquialisms. Anything you could point to would be greatly appreciated -- especially if there is an Italian equivalent of HN.
I'm a security researcher and am learning Italian with the goal of being able to speak at a conference there in the next year or two. As my language skills improve I've been trying to find some good cybersecurity and long form reporting as well as Instagram/Twitter users to follow to force Italian into my daily life and hopefully begin picking up technical jargon and colloquialisms. Anything you could point to would be greatly appreciated -- especially if there is an Italian equivalent of HN.
> could you suggest some good Italian journalism to follow
Treccani, at treccani.it
Not perfect content wise, nor technically - missing RSS. Nonetheless, in general involving vetted, non "random" (lacking quality, as seems to be typical) writers.
> Right now I just follow Repbl
I had the misfortune to stumble into that disgrace on or around 3 Mar 2020, where during a search engine generic search a title from that undead was returned, and it read: "Coronavirus: seven regions hit, 27 million italians". Read the title, re-read the date. See what you get from that. Careful with your sources, because in some countries journalism is well below ground level, and digging.
Treccani, at treccani.it
Not perfect content wise, nor technically - missing RSS. Nonetheless, in general involving vetted, non "random" (lacking quality, as seems to be typical) writers.
> Right now I just follow Repbl
I had the misfortune to stumble into that disgrace on or around 3 Mar 2020, where during a search engine generic search a title from that undead was returned, and it read: "Coronavirus: seven regions hit, 27 million italians". Read the title, re-read the date. See what you get from that. Careful with your sources, because in some countries journalism is well below ground level, and digging.
AgendaDigitale, DDAY, Valigia Blu, The Submarine, Il Post, Il Sole 24 Ore
I just read (following this recommendation) an article from valigiablu.it : it's excellent! - what is going on here? My constant massive feeling of doom vanished in front of a properly done intellectual practice, "Come Cristo Comanda".
It has RSS at https://www.valigiablu.it/feed/
It has RSS at https://www.valigiablu.it/feed/
Most of the major Italian newspapers' websites have paywalls but most libraries provide free online access to thousands and thousands of magazines and newspapers.
E.g. my local library system (here in US) uses PressReader and it has the Corriere (one of the major Italian newspapers) as well as 'Gazzetta dello Sport', 'Libero', 'Il Foglio', 'Il Tempo', '24 Ore' (economy news, similar to FT, down to the page color), etc.
Most daily newspapers would typically have weekly sections on specific topics, e.g. Corriere has 'Scienza e ambiente' etc. As for technical jargon, on the magazine front and on the same site, you can find the Italian edition of Wired as well as several other magazines on Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.
Specifically relevant for your use-case, one of the monthly magazines is 'Hacker Journal'.
Having said that, the UX of the PressReader site is workable but not great (you can get the 'full fidelity' view but it requires a lot of scrolling around to read, or you can use a 'text' view that is more accessible).
Several issues seem to be on archive.org so you don't even need a library account for that: https://archive.org/details/hackerjournal_italian.
E.g. my local library system (here in US) uses PressReader and it has the Corriere (one of the major Italian newspapers) as well as 'Gazzetta dello Sport', 'Libero', 'Il Foglio', 'Il Tempo', '24 Ore' (economy news, similar to FT, down to the page color), etc.
Most daily newspapers would typically have weekly sections on specific topics, e.g. Corriere has 'Scienza e ambiente' etc. As for technical jargon, on the magazine front and on the same site, you can find the Italian edition of Wired as well as several other magazines on Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.
Specifically relevant for your use-case, one of the monthly magazines is 'Hacker Journal'.
Having said that, the UX of the PressReader site is workable but not great (you can get the 'full fidelity' view but it requires a lot of scrolling around to read, or you can use a 'text' view that is more accessible).
Several issues seem to be on archive.org so you don't even need a library account for that: https://archive.org/details/hackerjournal_italian.
I used to read la Repubblica but the quality of the online content has gone down significantly (the physical newspaper is still good).
I think ilpost.it is well curated non-partisan journalism - I’m a happy subscriber - and for more in depth articles I like internazionale.it, which instead is left wing but not to irritating levels. Hope it helps :)
Just checked ilpost.it (which seems well done), it has RSS at https://www.ilpost.it/feed/
Internazionale.it writes that it "publishes weekly the best of newspapers around the world" - nonetheless, it seems to also be a positive intellectual source: it seems to contain original articles, selected translations (good for the selection effort: I just read a superb pick from Al Jazeera), but also compilative articles that discuss and integrate international journalistic interventions about specific topics - so, there are authors that present a topic through abridging the best articles about it (see https://www.internazionale.it/notizie/alessandro-lubello/202... ).
It has RSS at http://www.internazionale.it/sitemaps/rss.xml
--
Marginal note: in January 2020, the printed version of Internazionale reported, I believe in the coverpage, that a concerned government of Italy formally complained against China about obscurity in the virus spread that hit the Middle Kingdom, which reportedly replied "do not make a fuss about this petty thing".
Internazionale.it writes that it "publishes weekly the best of newspapers around the world" - nonetheless, it seems to also be a positive intellectual source: it seems to contain original articles, selected translations (good for the selection effort: I just read a superb pick from Al Jazeera), but also compilative articles that discuss and integrate international journalistic interventions about specific topics - so, there are authors that present a topic through abridging the best articles about it (see https://www.internazionale.it/notizie/alessandro-lubello/202... ).
It has RSS at http://www.internazionale.it/sitemaps/rss.xml
--
Marginal note: in January 2020, the printed version of Internazionale reported, I believe in the coverpage, that a concerned government of Italy formally complained against China about obscurity in the virus spread that hit the Middle Kingdom, which reportedly replied "do not make a fuss about this petty thing".
Internazionale is actually the best newspaper in italy. The opinionists are very smart too.
ilpost.it
I hear what you're saying, but bait is the best way to catch fish. If you want to go fishing for racists, it's best to use race bait.
> I hear what you're saying, but bait is the best way to catch fish. If you want to go fishing for racists, it's best to use race bait.
The point is that it's not exactly news that at right wing rallies you can find racists. It's not exactly award winning journalism in my opinion.
The point is that it's not exactly news that at right wing rallies you can find racists. It's not exactly award winning journalism in my opinion.
Similar arc to BuzzFeed probably?
Or Teen Vogue (which pivoted hard from beauty/fashion into sociopolitical commentary around 2016/2017).
Yes, but Buzzfeed presumably broke news and did the whole journalism mambo. Anyone can write sociopolitical commentary.
Sociopolitical commentary as in an anal sex guide to minors, and several articles "explaining" how Socialism is the way forward?
It's pretty clear to figure out what is their end-game, and it's not just a redirection from shallow subjects such as the fashion world and teenagers stuff, to more "serious" topics.
It's pretty clear to figure out what is their end-game, and it's not just a redirection from shallow subjects such as the fashion world and teenagers stuff, to more "serious" topics.
Every rag aka DailyMail provide commentary, it's standard. Can't compare it with the Italians or Buzzfeed news. Vogue pivoted from beauty to standard gossip rag.
I'm not an expert, but as far as I know, the difference between BuzzFeed (click-bait trash) and BuzzFeedNews (serious journalism sponsored by the former).
Yeah it started out as the Italian Buzzfeed, but now they’re getting serious
And TMZ
This is a surprise. I really thought that Fanpage was still a gossip news site so I never clicked any link to it. I went looking at it now and its news look better then most mainstream newspapers/websites.
This makes complete sense. Corporate journalists have many incentives to not publish the truth or to be stenographers for the establishment. That is why corporate media and journalists hate truth tellers and fearless journalists like Julian Assange and demand censorship on Internet platforms like YouTube, Twitter and Facebok with their corporate "factcheckers" in tow as muzzlers. Access journalism wants to censor all other voices.
> Corporate journalists have many incentives to not publish the truth or to be stenographers for the establishment
Agreed, if the establishment locks you out it’s impossible to do your job, so it’s difficult to bite the hand that feeds you
> journalists hate truth tellers and fearless journalists like Julian Assange
Huh? Assange and Snowden published with the help of several major newspapers
> demand censorship on Internet platforms like YouTube, Twitter and Facebok with their corporate "factcheckers" in tow as muzzlers
Journalists asking for censoring other journalists from YouTube? Where!?
Agreed, if the establishment locks you out it’s impossible to do your job, so it’s difficult to bite the hand that feeds you
> journalists hate truth tellers and fearless journalists like Julian Assange
Huh? Assange and Snowden published with the help of several major newspapers
> demand censorship on Internet platforms like YouTube, Twitter and Facebok with their corporate "factcheckers" in tow as muzzlers
Journalists asking for censoring other journalists from YouTube? Where!?
>Journalists asking for censoring other journalists from YouTube? Where!?
There is a constant drumbeat from the NYT, WASPO, corporate media crowd for platforms to "do more to combat misinformation".
There is a constant drumbeat from the NYT, WASPO, corporate media crowd for platforms to "do more to combat misinformation".
Yes, such as fact checking from real journalists. They’re not asking for less journalism, they’re asking for more
I don't know where you are from, but in Europe fact checker are actually only face up (and not too much) blogs, Facebook groups, and other similar media that makes hoaxes. Their news are like "that politician said that and this is false due to this, this, and this", "microwaving your phone won't charge it", or "vaccines won't give you 5G".
Heck, I read in some of them about how some important people done really bad things in the past, all with valid evidence from trusted sources, and no media faced them up.
Heck, I read in some of them about how some important people done really bad things in the past, all with valid evidence from trusted sources, and no media faced them up.
In the USA fact-checkers are usually funded by dark money super PACs looking to influence politics.