Italian
A debate will be held in Milan on the sensitive topic of how public order is ‘portrayed’ by the press.
Milan – “The Story Told by the Press – Police and Public Order Between Perception and Reality” is the title of the conference to be held tomorrow, October 10th in Milan, starting at 8:30 AM, at the Main Hall of the State Police’s STLP, located at Via dell’Unione 5.
Organized by Fsp Polizia di Stato Lombardia, the event will feature contributions from professionals and institutional representatives, starting with the Undersecretary of the Interior, Nicola Molteni, who will also visit the Mobile Unit afterward.
The Conference
In addition to the Undersecretary, and moderated by Stefania Cavallaro, Deputy Director of Tg4, speakers will include Maurizio Molinari, columnist for Repubblica; Pietro Senaldi, Co-director of Libero; Fabrizio Lotti, Deputy Secretary General of Fsp with responsibility for Public Order; and Valter Mazzetti, Secretary General of Fsp Polizia di Stato. Proceedings will begin with welcome remarks by Prefect Claudio Sgaraglia, Police Commissioner Bruno Megale, and Fsp Lombardia Secretary Gaetano Marrone.
Responsibility
“This meeting comes at a particularly fitting time,” says Mazzetti, “because the issues surrounding public order are extremely relevant right now and weigh heavily on the immense workload faced by police officers amid an unsustainable succession of high-risk events and demonstrations.
These are issues that people truly have no idea about, and I believe they should be fully incorporated into the media narrative, given how complex this subject is—both to describe and to manage. In recent weeks, we’ve read and heard accounts of incidents, marches, parades, and occupations—accounts often focused on capturing the political, social, and even emotional aspects of those involved. Yet never, not even once, have they included the police officers involved.”
“When reporting on public order events, there is a great responsibility,” Mazzetti adds, “and you cannot disregard the actual context—the background behind both the protester and the officer. Their reasons, conditions, intentions, and emotions. I am convinced that the narrative of a week like the one we just experienced should strive as much as possible to move away from the dehumanization of the uniform, because those who wear it are not crash-test mannequins.
They are real men and women, crushed by responsibilities that no one else would take on under the same conditions—having to fulfill their duty without adequate resources, without clear operational guidelines, and without legal protections for their role and safety, with everything that implies.
If, on top of the endless exhaustion of those who come home after inhumanly long shifts—torn, filthy, and broken in body and soul—there’s also a ‘story’ that ignores, downplays, or even justifies or criticizes the sacrifices they endured for a handful of coins, then the immense frustration of that officer will also rest on the shoulders of the storyteller—and the public will be left with an incomplete or distorted account.”
