Numero Zero

5 Friday, April 10

While we were still thinking about what to put into issue number 0/1, Simei gave everyone a broad outline of the essential aspects of our work.

“So, Colonna, please demonstrate to our friends how it’s possible to respect, or appear to respect, one fundamental principle of democratic journalism, which is separating fact from opinion. A great many opinions will be expressed in Domani, and they’ll be clearly identified as such, but how do we show that elsewhere articles give only facts?”

“Simple,” I said. “Take the major British or American newspapers. If they report, say, a fire or a car accident, then obviously they can’t indulge in saying what they think. And so they introduce into the piece, in quotation marks, the statements of a witness, a man in the street, someone who represents public opinion. Those statements, once put in quotes, become facts — in other words, it’s a fact that that person expressed that opinion. But it might be assumed that the journalist has only quoted someone who thinks like him. So there will be two conflicting statements to show, as a fact, that there are varying opinions on a particular issue, and the newspaper is taking account of this irrefutable fact. The trick lies in quoting first a trivial opinion and then another opinion that is more respectable, and more closely reflects the journalist’s view. In this way, readers are under the impression that they are being informed about two facts, but they’re persuaded to accept just one view as being more convincing. Let’s give an example: a bridge has collapsed, a truck has fallen over the edge, and the driver has been killed. The article, after carefully reporting the facts, will say: We interviewed Signor Rossi, age forty-two, proprietor of a newsstand on the street corner. ‘What do you expect? That’s fate,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry for the poor driver, but it’s the way things go.’ Immediately after, there’s Signor Bianchi, age thirty-four, a builder working on a nearby construction site, who’ll say, ‘The local authority’s to blame, this bridge has had problems, they’ve known about it for some time.’ Who is the reader going to identify with? With the one who’s being critical, who’s pointing the finger of blame. Clear? The problem is what to put in quotes, and how to do it. Let’s try a couple of exercises. We’ll start with you, Costanza. A bomb has exploded in Piazza Fontana.”

Costanza thought for a moment, then unleashed: “Signor Rossi, age forty-one, local authority employee, who might have been in the bank when the bomb exploded, told us, ‘I was not far away and felt the blast. It was horrendous. Someone is behind this with an agenda of their own, but we’ll never find out who.’ Signor Bianchi, age fifty, a barber, was also passing by at the time of the explosion, which he recalls as deafening and terrible, and commented, ‘It has all the makings of an anarchist attack, there’s no doubt about it.’”

“Excellent. Signorina Fresia, news arrives of the death of Napoleon.”

“Well, I’d say that Monsieur Blanche (let’s take his age and profession as read) tells us that perhaps it was unfair to imprison someone on that island whose life was already over — poor man, he too had a family. Monsieur Manzoni, or rather Manzonì, tells us, ‘We have lost someone who has changed the world, from the Manzanares to the Rhine. A great man.’”

“Manzanares, that’s good,” Simei said, smiling. “But there are other ways of passing on opinions undetected. To know what to include in a newspaper, you have, as journalists say, to set the agenda. There’s no end of news in this world. But why report an accident up here in the North, in Bergamo, and ignore another that’s taken place down south in Messina? It’s not the news that makes the newspaper, but the newspaper that makes the news. And if you know how to put four different news items together, then you can offer the reader a fifth. Here’s a newspaper from the day before yesterday. On the same page: Milan, newborn child tossed into toilet; Pescara, brother not to blame for Davide’s death; Amalfi, psychologist caring for anorexic daughter accused of fraud; Buscate, boy who killed an eight-year-old when he was fifteen released after fourteen years in reformatory. These four articles all appear on the same page, and the headline is ‘Child Violence and Society.’ They all certainly relate to acts of violence involving a child, but they are very different cases. Only one (the infanticide) involves violence by parents on a child; the business of the psychologist doesn’t seem to relate to children, since the age of this anorexic girl isn’t given; the story of the boy from Pescara proves, if anything, that no violence occurred and the boy died accidentally; and finally the Buscate case, on closer reading, involves a hoodlum of almost thirty, and the real news was fourteen years ago. So what is the newspaper saying on this page? Perhaps nothing intentional, perhaps an idle editor found himself with four agency dispatches and thought it was a good idea to run them together to produce a stronger effect. But in fact the newspaper is transmitting an idea, an alarm signal, a warning... And in any case, think of the reader: each of these news items, taken individually, would have had little impact, but together they force the reader to stay on that page. Understood? I know it’s commonly said that if a laborer attacks a fellow worker, then the newspapers say where he comes from if he’s a southerner but not if he comes from the North. All right, that’s racism. But imagine a page on which a laborer from Cuneo, etc. etc., a pensioner from Mestre kills his wife, a news vendor from Bologna commits suicide, a builder from Genoa signs a bogus check. What interest is that to readers in the areas where these people were born? Whereas if we’re talking about a laborer from Calabria, a pensioner from Matera, a news vendor from Foggia, and a builder from Palermo, then it creates concern about criminals coming up from the South, and this makes news... We’re a newspaper to be published in Milan, not down in Catania, and we have to bear in mind the feelings of readers in Milan. Note that ‘making news’ is a great expression. We’re the ones who make the news, and we must know how to make it emerge between the lines. Dottor Colonna, you’ll spend your free hours with our news team, looking through the agency dispatches, building up pages around a theme, learning to create news where there wasn’t any, or where it wasn’t to be seen. All right?”

Another topic was the Denial. We were still a newspaper without any readers, and so there was no one to challenge any of the news that we provided. But a newspaper is also judged by its capacity to handle denials, especially if it’s a newspaper that shows it doesn’t mind getting its hands dirty. Also, by training ourselves for the real denials when they came, we could invent letters from readers that we follow up with a denial. Just to let the Commendatore see what we are capable of.

“I discussed this yesterday with Dottor Colonna. And Colonna would like to give you a little talk on the technique of denial.”

“So,” I began, “let’s give a textbook example, which is not only fictitious but also, let’s say, rather far-fetched: a letter-of-denial parody that appeared a few years go in L’Espresso. The assumption was that the magazine had heard from a certain Signor Preciso Perniketti as follows.”

“How do you deal with such a clear denial without losing face? Here’s a good way of replying.”

“It is signed by Veruccio Veriti. So, what’s the point of this denial of a denial? Point number one, that the newspaper has received the information from sources close to Signor Perniketti. This always works. The sources aren’t given, but it implies the newspaper has confidential sources, perhaps more reliable than Perniketti. Use is then made of the journalist’s notebook. No one will ever see the notebook, but the idea of an actual record tends to inspire confidence in the newspaper and suggests that there is evidence. Lastly, insinuations are made that are meaningless in themselves but throw a shadow of suspicion over Perniketti. Now, I don’t say all denials have to take this form — this is just a parody — but keep in mind the three fundamental elements for a denial of a denial: other sources, notes in the reporter’s notebook, and doubts about the reliability of the person making the denial. Understood?”

“Very good,” they replied in chorus. And the following day, each brought examples of rather more credible denials, along with denials of denials less grotesque but equally effective. My five students had understood the lesson.

Maia Fresia proposed: “‘We take note of the denial but point out that what we have reported appears in the official record of the investigating magistrates, namely in the preliminary notification to the accused.’ What readers don’t know is that the magistrates then decided not to proceed against Perniketti. They don’t know that the official record was a confidential document, nor is it clear how it was obtained, or how genuine it was. I’ve done what you asked, Dottor Simei, but if you’ll allow me, this seems a pretty lousy trick.”

“My dear,” replied Simei, “it would be even more lousy for the newspaper to admit it hadn’t checked its sources. But I agree that rather than giving out information someone would be able to check, it’s better to limit yourself to insinuation. Insinuation doesn’t involve saying anything in particular, it just serves to raise a doubt about the person making the denial. For example: ‘We are happy to note the explanation, but we understand that Signor Perniketti’ — always keep to Signor, rather than Onorevole or Dottor; Signor is the worst insult in our country — ‘has sent dozens of denials to countless newspapers. This must indeed be a full-time compulsion.’ This way, readers become convinced he is paranoid. You see the advantage of insinuation: by saying that Perniketti has written to other newspapers, we are simply telling the truth, which can’t be denied. The most effective insinuation is the one that gives facts that are valueless in themselves, yet cannot be denied because they are true.”

With these recommendations clear in our minds, we began what Simei termed a brainstorming session. Palatino reminded us that he had previously worked on a puzzle magazine, and he suggested the newspaper include half a page of games, along with television schedules, weather, and horoscopes.

“Horoscopes, of course!” Simei said. “Great that you reminded us, they’re the first things our readers will be looking for! Yes, of course, this is your first task, Signorina Fresia. Go read a few newspapers and magazines that publish horoscopes, and take some of the recurring themes. But keep to optimistic predictions — people don’t like being told that next month they’re going to die of cancer. And give predictions that will apply to everyone, by which I mean that a woman of sixty isn’t going to be interested in the prospect of meeting the young man of her life, whereas the prediction, let’s say, that some event in the coming months will bring this Capricorn lasting happiness will suit everybody — adolescents (if they ever read it), aging spinsters, and office clerks waiting for a pay raise. But let’s address the games, my dear Palatino. What do you suggest? Crosswords?”

“Yes, crosswords,” said Palatino. “Unfortunately, we have to do the kinds of crosswords that ask who ruled Germany during the Second World War.”

“It would be a small miracle if the reader were to write ‘Hitler,’” sneered Simei.

“Meanwhile the cryptic crosswords in foreign newspapers have clues that are a puzzle in themselves. Recently, in a French newspaper, I saw ‘the friend of simples,’ and the solution was ‘herbalist,’ because simples aren’t just simpletons, but also medicinal herbs.”

“That’s no use to us,” said Simei. “Our readers won’t know what simples are, nor will they know what an herbalist is or does. Stick with Hitler, or the husband of Eve, or the mother of a calf, and stuff like that.”

Maia spoke at this point, her face illuminated by an almost childlike smile, as if she were about to do something mischievous. Crosswords were fine, she said, but readers had to wait for the next issue to find out whether their answers were correct. We could also pretend that some kind of competition had been started in previous issues and the readers’ funniest answers could be published here. We could ask readers to provide the silliest answers to an equally silly question.

“At university we amused ourselves by thinking up some weird questions and answers. Like: Why do bananas grow on trees? Because if they grew on the ground, they’d be snapped up by the crocodiles. Why do skis slide on the snow? Because if they slid only on caviar, winter sports would be too expensive.”

I joined in the game: “Why was whiskey invented in Scotland? Because if it had been invented in Japan, it would be sake, and you couldn’t drink it with soda. Why is the sea so vast? Because there are too many fish, and it would make no sense to put them on the Great Saint Bernard Pass. Why does the rooster crow a hundred and fifty times? Because if it crowed thirty-three times, it would be the Grand Master of the Freemasons.”

“Hold on,” said Palatino. “Why are glasses open at the top and closed at the bottom? Because if it were the other way around, then bars would go bankrupt. Why do fingernails grow and teeth not? Because otherwise people would bite their teeth when they were nervous. Why do legs bend inward and not out? Because on airplanes it would make forced landings extremely dangerous. Why did Christopher Columbus sail west? Because if he’d sailed east, he would have discovered Naples. Why do fingers have nails? Because if they had pupils, they’d be eyes.”

The competition was now in full flow, and Fresia intervened once more: “Why are aspirins different from iguanas? Because have you tried swallowing an iguana?”

“That’s enough,” said Simei. “This is schoolboy stuff. Don’t forget, our readers aren’t intellectuals. They haven’t read about the surrealists, who used to make exquisite corpses, as they called them. Our readers would take it all seriously and think we were mad. Come on, we’re fooling around, we have work to do.”

And so the silly-question column was rejected. Too bad, it would have been fun. But this whole business had drawn Maia Fresia to my attention. Along with such wit she must have had a certain charm. And in her own way, she did. Why in her own way? I still wasn’t quite sure in what way, but I was curious.

She was obviously feeling frustrated, however, and tried to suggest something more in line with her own interests. “The Strega literary prize is coming up,” she said. “Shouldn’t we be talking about the books on the shortlist?”

“Always going on about culture, you young people. It’s a good thing you didn’t graduate, otherwise you’d be suggesting a fifty-page critical essay—”

“No, I didn’t graduate, but I do read.”

“We can’t get too involved in culture, our readers don’t read books. The most they’re going to read is La Gazzetta dello Sport. But I agree, the newspaper will have to have a page, not just on culture, but culture and entertainment. Forthcoming cultural events, however, should be reported in the form of interviews. An interview with the author is reassuring: no authors will speak badly of their books, so our readers will not be exposed to any spiteful or supercilious attacks. Then a lot depends on the questions: you shouldn’t talk too much about the book but rather concentrate on the writer, perhaps on his or her foibles and weaknesses. Signorina Fresia, you have experience with celebrity romances. Think of an interview with one of the short-listed authors. If the story is about love, get the author to describe their first love affair, and perhaps to throw a little mud at the other candidates. Turn the wretched book into something human that even a housewife will understand, so she has no regrets if she doesn’t read it, and anyway, who reads books that newspapers review? Generally speaking, not even the reviewer. We should be thankful if the book has been read by the author.”

“My God,” said Maia Fresia, turning pale, “I’ll never rid myself of the curse of celebrity romance.”

“You haven’t exactly been called here to write articles on the economy and international politics.”

“I guessed as much. Though I’d hoped I was wrong.”

“There now, don’t take it badly. Try to put something down, we all have great faith in you.”