Italy. Lawsuits: Freelancer abandoned by his newspaper. Assisted by Ossigeno

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The Case of Journalist Giuseppe Spallino – Il Giornale di Sicilia has published his articles but is not paying his legal defence costs

OSSIGENO September 24^th, 2025 – Ossigeno’s Legal Aid Help Desk, which works in collaboration with Media Defence to support journalists, bloggers, and others affected by frivolous lawsuits, SLAPPs, and other retaliatory actions, who find having to defend themselves, has granted freelance journalist Giuseppe Spallino a financial contribution to cover the legal costs incurred in defending himself from a defamation lawsuit that appears to be unfounded. The newspaper that published the contested articles has decided not to pay the legal costs.

In the following text, written for Ossigeno, the journalist reconstructs the story and recounts the details that show how precarious the working situations of several newspaper contributors are, and how this becomes evident when they are hit by legal action and find themselves forced to defend themselves, at their own expense, without the support of the publisher who published their articles.

Read here other cases covered by the Help Desk

By GIUSEPPE SPALLINO – Ossigeno is once again standing by me in a situation where I found myself alone, and has invited me to share why it deserves attention. Indeed, it shows, with a concrete example, what can happen in Italy to freelance journalists, those who collaborate with a newspaper without being its employees. Perhaps things don’t work out this way for everyone, but I’ve been sued on a spurious basis for an article published by the newspaper I work for, and I’ve found myself having to pay my own legal fees, without the newspaper’s help.

It seems like a Kafkaesque story, given the various paradoxes it revealed. The first was the indictment, as it is worded. It states that the accused, that is, me, “as a local correspondent for the Giornale di Sicilia, published an article reporting on the anti-mafia operation called Black Cat for the crime of mafia association and receiving stolen goods. During the article, he referred to one of the defendants, attributing the conduct in question, without specifying that he had been acquitted at the end of the first-instance trial.”

This is precisely what is written in the indictment. The paradox is that, right at the beginning of that article, I specify that the defendants I am referring to were “acquitted by the Court”!

But let’s get to the second paradox. When I received the lawsuit and the request to appoint a lawyer, I called the lawyer of Giornale di Sicilia, the newspaper that published the article I’m being challenged about. I told him I should appoint a lawyer and had thought of him. He warned me that since the editor-in-chief hadn’t been sued along with me, as often happens, the costs of my defence would be borne by me and not by the newspaper.

I didn’t want to believe it. I wrote to the editorial secretary to ask him to confirm what the lawyer had told me. He confirmed that this is the policy the newspaper follows in these cases.

And so I found myself alone, abandoned by my newspaper, by the very newspaper that approved and published the article for which I’m now being sued and other articles of mine for which I risked being attacked.

I can’t forget it. It happened in the summer of 2017. The Giornale di Sicilia published a three-part story of mine in which I reported on the wiretaps of members of a local drug-dealing gang.

The newspaper complimented me. But the two leaders of the gang didn’t like it. They tried to attack me and chased me all the way to the police station. They didn’t want to give up.

Since then, the police have protected me with general surveillance linked by radio, following a decision of the Provincial Committee for Public Order and Safety of Palermo.

It was a sensational case. The National Order of Journalists, the sector associations, and Ossigeno per l’informazione expressed their solidarity. What is solidarity? I can say that it’s something a reporter in that unpleasant situation greatly appreciates, and he or she remains grateful to those who take a stand and lend a helping hand. I knew that by publishing that information, I was risking something. I knew the compensation for those articles would be a few euro. But I did it because I love my job and I know that to expose the truth, you have to take some risk.

I know full well that my newspaper isn’t rolling in money. But I expected it to at least join the civil action against my attackers. It did not. I joined the civil action at my own expense, defended by a trusted lawyer.

I think it’s useful to know how these things actually work for us correspondents, freelancers, and local reporters.

I’ve known for years and appreciate the work of “Ossigeno per l’Informazione,” its Observatory on threatened journalists, and its founder and president, Alberto Spampinato. Ossigeno also granted me a cash gratuity in the appeal process, to partially cover the legal costs I’m incurring to defend myself in a trial that will see me once again, against my will, in the dock on charges of libel.

ASP