You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Italian. (May 2023) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
View a machine-translated version of the Italian article.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Italian Wikipedia article at [[:it:Vittorio Feltri]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|it|Vittorio Feltri}} to the talk page.
Vittorio Feltri (born 25 June 1943) is an Italian journalist and politician. Among the many Italian newspapers he directed, he was most recently the editor-in-chief of daily Libero until 2020, and since 2023 he is back at the Il Giornale as editorial director. As a member of the Brothers of Italy party, he was a member of the City Council of Milan from 2021 to 2022, and is a member of the Regional Council of Lombardy. He is the author of several books.[1]
Feltri started his career as journalist in 1962, writing film reviews for the local newspaper L'Eco di Bergamo. In 1977, he moved to the Corriere della Sera. In the 1980s and 1990s, he was also director of Bergamo oggi, L'Europeo, and L'Indipendente.[1]
In 1993, Feltri refused the offer of Silvio Berlusconi to get involved in Fininvest. The next year, he agreed to become editor of il Giornale, which was owned by Berlusconi, after its founder Indro Montanelli left. He was its editor until 1997.[1] In the same period, he contributed to other newspapers and magazines, including Panorama, Il Foglio, and Il Messaggero. In 2000, he founded the right-wing newspaper Libero, which he ran until 2009.[1] In August 2009, he once again became the editor of Berlusconi's il Giornale. In 2016, he returned to Libero, which he directed until 2020.[1]
In June 2020, Feltri resigned from the Italian Order of Journalists [it], of which he had been a member since 22 September 1969. The choice came after a number of controversial statements related to the COVID-19 pandemic, Southern Italy, and disciplinary proceedings.[4] The announcement was made by Il Giornale.[5][6]
Feltri married Maria Luisa at a young age, with whom he had twin daughters Saba Laura and Laura Adele.[2] Widowed in 1967 at the age of 24, with his wife dead due to complications of childbirth, he remarried in 1968 to Enoe Bonfanti, with whom he had two children: Mattia, who is also a journalist, and Fiorenza.[2][39] Feltri is an atheist.[40] He is a supporter of the Atalanta football club.[41] Feltri owns a Benito Mussolini's bust. About this, he clarified: "For me, born in 1943, anti-fascism has never been in question. The bust was sent by an innkeeper, nice but very fascist. I put it there so as not to see it."[42]
On 13 May 2010, Feltri spoke on Animal Awareness Day, expressing support for animal rights positions, in particular against sport fishing and in favour of vegetarianism.[43] A cat lover, he said he was not completely vegetarian.[44] Despite the conviction for a homophobic insult in 2011, he joined Arcigay in 2014, stating from the pages of Il Giornale: "We are for freedom, without discrimination, convinced that it is necessary to overcome the prejudices that generate misunderstandings, banalities, [and] boring and stupid insults".[45]
Controversy and legal issues
In March 2010, Feltri was suspended six months from the professional register for the Boffo case, dating back to August 2009,[46] and for the articles signed by Renato Farina [it], one of the Italian journalists who wrote for the newspaper directed by Feltri, published after his disbarment from the register.[47][48][49] Feltri reacted to the news by stating: "I am sorry that I am not a pedophile priest or at least a homosexual semi-priest or a left-wing conductor, but that I am simply a journalist who cannot therefore enjoy the protection of the bishops, nor become a martyr of information".[50] In Italian political journalistic language, the Boffo method means the activity of denigration in the press based on specially constructed false documents. Feltri later reiterated that the news he published about Dino Boffo, referring to Boffo's conviction of harassment and alleged homosexuality, was true, that he intended to provide information on the hypocrisy of a part of the Catholic world, and that he still felt sorrowful for having caused his resignation.[51]
In December 2011, the Court of Milan sentenced Feltri to compensate Gianpaolo Silvestri, the former Federation of the Greens senator, among the founders of Arcigay, with €50,000 for a homophobic insult. He had used ad hominem, a strategy of rhetoric also used by the Sophists of ancient Greece, aimed exclusively at damaging the adversary, as opposed to philosopher Socrates, who had the goal of reaching truth.[52][53] In 2017, Farina said that, according to him, Asia Argento simply chose to prostitute herself in order to be able to make a career. According to Alessandro Sallusti [it], another Italian journalist, there was nothing wrong with this; according to him, it was unfair to sue after twenty years, and having gained fame.[54]
In 2019, Feltri expressed antisemitic views towards journalist David Parenzo and declared that Jews have bored him with the Holocaust.[55] During a television interview in February 2021, he was asked by the journalist Barbara Palombelli [it]: "Which relevant people would you like in the new government?". He replied to her "Hitler", provoking controversy both on social media and in the press.[56] During a television show in April 2020, Feltri considered Southern Italians as "inferior people". His words caused controversy around Italy.[57] In response, he said that he meant to say they were inferior only and exclusively from an economic point of view, in the sense that the production of material (not spiritual) wealth, according to him, was superior in Lombardy rather than in Campania.[58][59] He said that he was deeply in love with the city of Naples, its dialect, songs, and culture.[60]
In December 2024, he declared in an interview to Belve that he met Pope Francis and that they discussed about common ideas, such as that there is too much homosexuality (using the pejorative word « frociaggine ») in the Catholic Church.[61]
Works
Feltri is the author of several books, including Buoni e cattivi. Le pagelle con il voto ai personaggi conosciuti in 50 anni di giornalismo (with Stefano Lorenzetto [it], 2015), Il Quarto Reich. Come la Germania ha sottomesso l'Europa (with Gennaro Sangiuliano, 2014), Non abbiamo abbastanza paura. Noi e l'islam (2015); Il vero cafone (with Massimiliano Parente [it], 2016), Chiamiamoli ladri. L'esercito dei corrotti (2017), Il borghese. La mia vita e i miei incontri da cronista spettinato (2018), L'irriverente (2019), Ritratti di campioni. Cronache di un giornalista tifoso (2020), and Come era bello l'inizio della fine. I grandi incontri della mia vita (2022).[1]
