Blimey, Buffoon Berlusconi's Bad

[Jan Klimkowski]

When Il Duce met Il Buffone, a new psychological condition was born.

Silvio Berlusconi plans taskforce to fight bad press over sex and legal woes

Foreign media to be bombarded with good news about Silvio Berlusconi and Italy

Unsatisfied with his direct and indirect control over most of Italy's media, Silvio Berlusconi has devised a campaign to stop the world's press sniping at him over his sex life and legal woes.

An emergency taskforce is to be established within a month to monitor airwaves and news-stands the world over for coverage of Italy and bombard foreign newsrooms with good news about the country.

The plan was announced by the tourism minister, Michela Vittoria Brambilla, who said a crack team of young journalists and communications experts would be assembled to stamp out bad news.

"Their first job will be to monitor all the foreign press, including dailies, periodicals and TV in every latitude, from Japan to Peru," she told Corriere della Sera today.

The second task will be to "bombard those newsrooms with truthful and positive news", and reveal to the world "a generous, truthful and audacious Italy – the Italy of entrepreneurs, art, cultural events and our products".

Berlusconi attacked the foreign press yesterday for criticising himself and Italy, days after the country's constitutional court stripped him of legal immunity, a ruling which means he again faces prosecution for fraud and bribing British tax adviser David Mills.

According to Brambilla, Berlsuconi's problems with the law are not in any way blackening Italy's reputation. Instead she blamed "an anti-Italian group working against Italy with the single aim of discrediting and destroying the prime minister".

Berlusconi, who owns Italy's largest private television network and has indirect influence over the state RAI network, has said he will now make radio and TV appearances to explain to Italians why his upcoming trials are "farcical".

A spokeswoman at the tourism ministry said a taskforce to revive Italy's image had previously been set up during Naples's rubbish crisis, when tonnes of putrid waste spilled through the streets.

A former beauty contestant and entrepreneur, Brambilla also worked as a journalist with one of the prime minister's TV channels before founding the Freedom TV channel in 2007, which attacked the then centre-left government and rallied for Berlusconi's return to office.

Brambilla said today that Italian exports were suffering as a result of the country's bad press. "Exporters are worried because it is only news of the shameful attacks on Berlusconi that reach abroad. This affects national appeal and we cannot allow that."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct...s-sex-life