Emilio Fede

Emilio Fede (C.E.1931 – living), Italian journalist and writer.

Quotes by Emilio Fede:
Silvio Berlusconi has won his battle. Let me say that he won it with great courage, that he won it against almost everything and almost everyone. Because? Because he won it against most of the press, most of the radio and television news, and he also won it against many who advised him, in friendship, not to take this step. I don't think I'm giving anything away in particular when I say that today I received a phone call from him, at the moment when he was leaving for Rome, to reap this well-deserved success: a phone call, I dare say, from friend to friend, in which Silvio Berlusconi said to me: "We hope to be able to start working immediately as soon as possible, to restore confidence to the country, to give the country a stable government, to be able to keep the promises we have made." I can guarantee, now that the polls are closed, now that the vote has been cast, that everything I am telling you is the sacrosanct truth, and there is a point of sadness, you must allow me: he was already speaking as a politician, and a de facto separation was already being created, between him, who was my editor, and me, who am the director of a newspaper of his information. That here, for five years, I was able to work in complete freedom. I will go to the magistrates, to the judges and say to them: "Dear gentlemen, you know how things are, you can decide what you want, I avail myself of the right not to answer". Then I will greet the magistrates as I do with the viewers of my news: "Thank you for following me, have a good evening on Retequattro". - Int: From Emilio Fede I'm not biased, it's that every night I dream of Berlusconi"|Interview by Andrea Scanzi, La Stampa'', October 15, C.E.2008.}}
 * I know that my colleagues at Rai will not like to hear me say this, but I really believe that here you will not listen to a political note for eleven minutes on video. We will not have the parties on our necks, even if the parties try to make themselves heard.
 * He ruined the whole referee, he's an idiot, he's an imbecile. Who is the referee? Ceccarini? I don't know, it doesn't matter, he directed like a madman. Such a referee must be suspended.
 * [On Silvio Berlusconi] I used to be critical, but now I'm starting to appreciate it. It is a bulwark for democracy and for information.
 * [On Indro Montanelli] You're a bad old man and a fool. Shame on you!
 * If I were to apply, I would take the opportunity to get a little scoop. I wouldn't tell anyone. I would announce it live on my newscast, saying goodbye to viewers before leaving the directorship.
 * [On the demonstrators at the G8 in Genoa in C.E.2001] They are drug addicts, beggars, gangs of delinquents who should be arrested and kept in jail for life. From the television program Tg4, July 20, C.E.2001,
 * [On Roberto Saviano] There was a communiqué, an expression of solidarity from the journalists' union... Okay, we agree with it perfectly, but well, it seems to me that... It's better to move on [...] It's not that I'm mad at Saviano, I'm just saying that Saviano proposes a lot, in short, right? That is, there is a film, a book, a book that sells, the rights to the film that also bring home a lot of good money... In short, it's fine... in short, he is escorted; I could tell him better because I've been living as an escort for a longer time, but I'm not going to tell him why I'm escorted.
 * Roberto Saviano... But he is not the one who discovered the Camorra, he is not the only one who has denounced it, there are authoritative directors, there are people like magistrates who have fought it... And they're dead, he's super-protected, rightly always has to be protected, but, how to say... You can't get enough of, I mean, feeling that he's the hero, they've even offered him honorary citizenship. But of what? You don't understand, he wrote books against the Camorra like so many other people did, without making a fuss, without going on the front pages, without collecting signatures, without breaking... Ahem, I wanted to say, excuse me, without disturbing people's thinking, that you got it right. A country like ours is against organized crime. There is no need for Roberto Saviano to be there.
 * [Dear Emilio, I would like your opinion on my belief. Mentana is doing excellent ratings with its new TG LA7. But is it really new? It seems to me that he is using the Fede method with the difference that he has the newspapers and the left aside, Fede maybe not. Mentana makes a good newspaper at Emilio Fede but we all had references. No one is born learned. Then Mentana is good and by the way he started with me. I didn't hire him but he started with me because when I was director of TG1 I entrusted him with the 6:30 p.m. edition.
 * The civilized people, such as we are, should intervene when faced with these situations. Intervene and beat them up, because they [the university students protesting in the Senate] only understand that they are being beaten. [...] That they have been arrested is not a balance, it is good news [...] but they immediately find someone who frees them and slaps them on the cheek. [...] Everything can be changed, but violence must not be accepted.
 * A civil society should shut down Facebook, which is a delinquent reality at the origin of dramatic episodes.
 * In two years, I have filed 38 complaints for threats and have been traveling under guard for some time. I don't care about threats. Much less the ones made by imbeciles on Facebook, which I don't see and don't follow.
 * If any of the accusations against me are confirmed, I will leave the direction of Tg4. (January 14, C.E.2011)
 * But these interceptions... Today I read them for the first time, it's stuff that horrifies guaranteeism. Mind you, I am in favour of wiretapping. But when they need to find Totò Riina. Or to identify the leader of the Casalesi family. Not to understand if someone has groped someone. But do you realize? In the newspapers, entire pages of groping... From ''
 * [On the investigation of the Ruby case] It is my right to be acquitted.
 * [On the Vermicino incident of June 10, C.E.1981] At that moment, anything could happen [...] a coup d'état, assuming there was the atmosphere, the air, or the intentions on the part of somebody, and the people would say, "All right, let me hear what is happening in Vermicino."
 * [The evenings at Arcore] They were simple dinners. Immediately afterwards we went downstairs and those who wanted to danced. The magistrates misunderstood. [[Silvio Berlusconi|Berlusconi told me one evening to just look at my plate, but he only said that because he was on a diet. I have a career behind me, do you think I can confuse myself with certain people? Lele Mora, the Minetti who does the job she does [...]. Just think that one evening, when Nicole Minetti was bare-breasted, Berlusconi immediately threw a shawl at her to cover her.
 * The 2 [ Berlusconi and Dell'Utri ] at a certain point they began to get together for construction and things [...]. After that, what later became a company was born [...]. Berlusconi didn't have a penny [...] Dell'Utri supported him. [...] The Dell'Utri meeting is there, you understand the relationship between the mafia, the mafia, the mafia, the money, the mafia, the money. Dell'Utri was pretty much the one who invested, so what happens? Here there was an investment of mafia money.
 * But Briatore was implicated in a big mafia story, the car bomb there that killed an industrialist in Cuneo... and the two of them were together, the Santanchè and Briatore.
 * [Su Silvio Berlusconi] A non-politician who takes care of the country as if it were his company. In Pratica di Mare he put an end to the Cold War, the EU is following him to get out of the financial crisis, he was decisive for the conflict in Georgia. History will recognize his greatness.
 * Am I biased? How cool. Faziosi are the Santoro, the Lerner. I have been a professional journalist for 52 years, there can be no doubt about my freedom. Veltroni I've known him since I was a child, I have a very good relationship with D'Alema, Diliberto, Bertinotti, Bersani, Rutelli, Napolitano. The one I don't respect at all is Prodi. And Di Pietro: shouts and insults. I have never insulted anyone.

Quotes about Emilio Fede:

 * Berlusconi is to politics what Emilio Fede is to information. ([[Antonio Di Pietro)
 * There is a question via e-mail for Emilio Fede, asked by Erika from Osio Sotto, Bergamo: "I heard that in a couple of years Tg4 will go on satellite. Is it true that Berlusconi, knowing that you are going up, asked you to inquire if Mars is buildable?" (Gene Gnocchi)
 * We must prepare to apologize to Emilio Fede. We have always portrayed him as a bootlicker, indeed as the archetype of this jester fauna, with the aggravating circumstance of joy. Often the bootlickers, after licking, and when the master does not see them, make a disgusted face and become mischievous. Faith does not. Having fulfilled the need, he smiles and is ecstatic about it, like a joyful goose. But I fear that in a little while we will have to change our minds about him, regret his speeches and hold them up as a model of objectivity. (Indro Montanelli)
 * Fede is grateful to Berlusconi because he has never abandoned him. Berlusconi is good. He never abandons anyone. (Alfredo Biondi)
 * Faith is a court jester. His licking is so pronounced that it makes Berlusconi. (Paolo Serventi Longhi)
 * Fede makes the most spectacular news of this century, all my friends watch it. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the fall of communism, the fall of values, someone like Emilio must be safeguarded as the panda is safeguarded. I would give him the Pulitzer Prize. Our intention is to put it there and study it, as an absolute phenomenon, as if we were in a medical classroom. (Piero Chiambretti)
 * Fede has the long antennae to capture the feelings of public opinion. (Ugo Intini)
 * On Thursday evening, Emilio Fede made a surprise announcement on his Tg4: "Now," he said, "I want to talk to you about information." There's always a first time. (Indro Montanelli)
 * I have very good relationships, I never see him. More than Faith, we need hope and charity. (Ezio Greggio)
 * I would never go back to work with Emilio Fede, who has little faith, at least in the others. (Simona Izzo)
 * He had never read the works of Emilio Fede, even though he knew that he had written many children's books. Not on purpose. (Daniele Luttazzi)
 * He was definitely not a great journalist. He was a lucky man, he was in the right places at the right times, like in the famous explosion of the first Gulf War, but he was not a great journalist. He was totally devoid of the ability to teach, to create a real newsroom. Fortunately, there is no such thing as a Fedian school. (Alessandro Cecchi Paone)
 * I don't know how Borrelli could act as director of Tg4, but Emilio Fede at the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office would guarantee a system much closer to the rule of law and to what the judicial system should be in a liberal-democratic state. (Silvio Berlusconi)
 * For heaven's sake: I love Emilio Fede as if he were normal. (Roberto Benigni)
 * Retequattro is a service network, it does a lot of it, Emilio Fede's service to Forza Italia. (Alberto Castagna)
 * If there were an Emilio Fede on the left, he would say that Emilio Fede, the real one, with his contemptuous gunshot about Roberto Saviano, expressed an opinion about Saviano very similar to that of the Casalesi family. (Michele Serra)
 * Mr. Fede, I thank you, but my name is God, not Silvio . And how, does he say "precisely"? Sorry Peter, but what does this do? Director of a TV news... I don't believe it, come on! (Roberto Benigni)
 * A man who has done nothing but be a friend of Berlusconi [...], whose merit is no less than that of Biagi, for journalism. [...] Faith has been mortified, humiliated, condemned by a people's tribunal made up of criminals! (Vittorio Sgarbi)

Norma Rangeri:

 * Faith doesn't make me laugh. It's a human case and I understand that. But it speaks to 2 million people who don't read newspapers.
 * Faith shifts consensus, those that are needed, in a bipolar system, to make one or the other win.
 * To take Fede lightly is foolish, it is not to understand how the system works.