In Italy you might then ask yourself how it came about that Fabio Tuiach became a media star. Invited to all talk shows, activated as interlocutors for senior physicians from intensive care units, virologists and epidemiologists. Tuiach, 41 years old, a former professional boxer, is a dock worker from Trieste. 1.88 meters tall, impressive figure, hair tied in a ponytail. A few weeks ago, when some of the port’s employees resisted the introduction of the Green Pass, threatened to block the docks and took their protest to Piazza Unità d’Italia, for a while the national epicenter of certificate opponents and vaccination skeptics, marched he went ahead and said a lot of strange things on the television cameras. About the coronavirus as an invention and conspiracy, about Jesus and the Madonna. Unfortunately, he was just on sick leave, the port authorities should discharge him later.
But Tuiach was now a public figure, and apparently he earned the broadcasters good ratings. Covid? “I felt almost nothing, that’s nothing more than the flu,” he said with a generally valid claim, which in the early winter of 2021 sounds like a very bizarre interpretation of the situation. He got the virus at the demonstrations – not because many “No Vax” like him infected each other: Tuiach is convinced that the state added the virus to the water with which the protesters were pelted. In his countless television appearances, he was allowed to spread all his theories, and the whole arrangement made it seem like what he said about the virus and the disease was worth as much as what doctors and scientists said about it . As if in the end everything was just a competition of opinions.
The moderators, of course, opposed this, asking in disbelief, sometimes somewhat indignantly. But there were the theories about “Big Pharma” and the alleged “health dictatorship”, which otherwise circulate mainly in chat groups and in more or less large bubbles in social media, already served in the world to an audience of millions.
Mentana says he’s proud that he has never invited a “No Vax” to appear on his shows
Italy is now discussing whether such personalities should continue to have a place on the stage – or whether, out of respect for democracy, it is enough to journalistically capture the positions of this minority and analyze and refute their theses as objectively as possible. Tuiach isn’t the only one. There is also an Orthodox priest who claims that vaccination is the devil, and that is why the Pope who promotes vaccination is a Satanist. Or a police chief who made a name for herself overnight as a fan of skeptics in the country’s piazzas, and simply claimed on television: “If you are otherwise in good health, you can endure this Covid well.”
The debate was sparked by Enrico Mentana, one of the most famous journalists in the country, editor-in-chief and anchorman of the news programs on the private television station La 7. In a newspaper interview, Mentana said he was proud that he had never been a spokesman for the “No Vax” in one of his broadcasts. “We are in the middle of the hottest phase of the pandemic,” he said. “If we don’t all row in the same direction now, a new wave of contagion will come and flood us.” And: “When it comes to our health, we cannot allow ourselves to talk on television as if we were doing sports in the bar.” The “Bar Sport” is Italy’s counterpart to the regulars’ table.
Silvio Berlusconi, himself a staunch Provax, stopped his roaring talks “Fuori dal coro” (from the choir) and “thirdo e rovescio” (forehand and backhand) on Rete 4. But only for a month.
(Photo: Alessandro Di Meo / dpa)
In particular, colleagues from the same station reacted with piquancy. Fabio Tuiach has already been in almost all formats of La 7. Massimo Giletti, for example, the moderator of the loud panel discussion Not è l’Arena, said Mentana that he was only allowing the mainstream, and that was a problem.
Monica Maggioni, the new boss of TG1 on Rai Uno, the largest daily news in the country, is on the other hand with Mentana. “I share every word,” she said, “including the spaces.” You don’t joke with life. And that’s why you don’t compare a scientist with a shaman. “For a while it looked as if Silvio Berlusconi also had some understanding and started his roaring talks Fuori dal coro (From the choir) and Third e rovescio (Forehand and backhand) on Rete 4. Berlusconi, who himself suffered from Covid, is a determined “Pro Vax”. When he recently received the booster, he was filmed while being vaccinated and made a sign of victory in his hands. But apparently Berlusconi’s Mediaset is only suspending the programs for a month, for Christmas, so that the moderators can also take a breath. In the end, the ratings are obviously more important.
Also very popular: the converted and repentant – they too bring quotas
Meanwhile, a new kind of talk-goer appears: the converts and the learned. People who were invited recently to voice their wild guesses, then got infected and now show remorse. Among them a dock worker from Trieste, a colleague from Tuiach. He hooked up from the hospital with tubes in his nose. “We were wrong,” he said, and told of his stubborn bedmate who turned down the therapy: “He came in here, and there they pushed him dead out of the room.” The doctor, who until recently claimed on all channels that vaccines are in truth “wastewater” https://www.sueddeutsche.de/medien/. “Vaccinate you all,” he now says into the cameras, has a new appearance . Apparently these guests also deliver very respectable quotas.