Journalism has many flaws.
Journalists are either individualist and selfish,
or, on the other hand, they go with the crowd,
they therefore follow common ideas,
or a common way of doing this job.
I believe that some competition is necessary.
With new technologies, with social networks,
this job has become extremely competitive,
it hadn't happened since when I started,
now we have user-generated content,
users themselves produce pieces of news.
There is a global competition, there is no other sector...
...in which consumers compete so much with producers,
it simply does not exist.
There's no sector that has the same ability to reinvent itself
as journalism,
we don't have a schedule,
facts determine our schedule.
Each day is different from the other,
and facts often take us totally by surprise,
either because we are not experts, or we are not moved enough,
or we are not curious enough.
Sometimes we do not want to accept those facts,
because they go against our own opinions,
we project ourselves onto what we have to describe.
And this is a terrible mistake.
We should be more competitive,
and, most of all, we should look at events in a different way,
we should look at them from uncommon points of view.
thinking that after all we do not hold the truth,
many colleagues think they have the truth in their pockets,
they consider themselves as demigods,
as interpreters, or actors, of the scene they are describing.
Journalists are not actors, they are witnesses.
Such a will, or ability, humility, of recognizing one's mistakes...
...is not among a journalist's qualities.
Journalists are individualist,
they think that everything revolves around them,
their vanity is often uncontrollable,
their sense of power is absolutely enthralling.
I believe that if reporters had the humility they should have,
they would be more useful to society,
and also nicer,
unfortunately we are rather unpleasant.
A newspaper is good if its accounts are in order.
If the accounts are bad, its quality will also deteriorate.
Saying No is part of a journalist's professional life,
because a journalist is often asked...
...to give up its role,
because unfortunately society thinks our job has no rules,
that sometimes such rules disappear because of friendships.
I never asked my friends who are entrepreneurs…
...not to do their jobs, or people doing other jobs.
So it was unacceptable that they asked me not to do mine.
In Italy, writing your memoirs is considered as a vanity sin.
In other countries, the memoir genre is almost a civil duty,
you write an account of what you have done in your life.
Admitting your mistakes, your faults,
at the end of your life, or of a chapter of your life,
is an act of responsibility,
it's part of the legacy that we pass on to other people.
Legacy is not what we pass on to our children,
it's not the material will that we pass on to them,
it doesn't mean handing over a propriety, money.
I think legacy is the mark...
...that we leave on society, being it big or small.