Sale of top Italian papers means ‘transfer of narrative power’ to foreign owners – journalist (VIDEO)

Plans to sell La Repubblica and La Stampa have sparked concerns about a loss of editorial control, Simona Mangiante has told RT

Plans for two of Italy’s leading newspapers to be sold to a foreign media group amount to a “transfer of narrative power” and risk putting control of the country’s public debate in outside hands, journalist and former legal adviser to the European Parliament Simona Mangiante has warned.

Speaking to RT on Tuesday, Mangiante commented on reports that Exor, the holding company of Italy’s Agnelli family, is in talks to sell most of the media group GEDI – publisher of La Repubblica and La Stampa – to Greece’s Antenna Group, owned by shipping magnate Theodore Kyriakou.

The Greek conglomerate owns TV channels and other media assets across Europe and North America and is reported to have strong links to US business. Its advisory board includes senior American media executives, while Italian media have noted Kyriakou’s ties to circles aligned with US President Donald Trump as a source of concern over a possible editorial shift at any outlets that may come under the group’s control.

“This is not simply a business transaction, this is a transfer of narrative power,” Mangiante said, describing La Repubblica and La Stampa as “institutional newspapers” that have shaped Italy’s domestic narrative “for decades, almost for a century.” Handing them to Antenna, which she called a “foreign infrastructure,” would mean that “control of the domestic narrative” moves abroad, she argued.

The planned sale, reportedly valued at around €140 million (just over $164 million), has triggered strikes, newsroom protests, and calls for government intervention. Workers fear for their jobs and a loss of editorial independence, while Italian officials have warned that media pluralism and freedom of information could be at risk.

Mangiante said that in Italy, where politics and media are “closely intertwined,” the main concern is “control, not simply pluralism,” and that the government would lose influence over the “mainstream setting of the news.”

While the deal involves one private group buying another, Rome has little legal scope to stop it, she noted. If the sale goes ahead it will bring “a dramatic change” in how Italian news is produced and consumed, Mangiante warned.