The Latest Bad News from Italy – Ossigeno Review – 20th November 2025

Periodic selection of monitoring reports published by the Observatory on intimidation and threats to journalists and on news obscured in Italy

OSSIGENO November 20th, 2025 – What’s happening in Italy? What’s behind the bombing of Sigfrido Ranucci, host of the television program “Report” on Rai3, on October 17? What else happened before and around it? The attack appears to be just the tip of a large iceberg, the visible part of a broad but little-known Italian phenomenon: the use of threats and intimidation to censor journalists. This phenomenon is documented by Ossigeno per l’Informazione for 20 years and has been now updated with a report stating that in the first six months of 2025, its observatory recorded threats to 361 media workers (most of them journalists), whose names have been made public. Compared to the 203 threatened in the same period in 2024, this represents a 78% increase and a worrying trend: intimidation by politicians has increased, with Lombardy and Lazio being the two regions with the highest number of threats, and with more threatened people failing to report to politicians.

Italy. The bombing on journalist Sigfrido Ranucci’s home

1/Hundreds of threats in the background – Huge uproar and more protection for the investigative journalist while Ossigeno data show a very serious grow of intimidation to reporters

2/A brazen attack that cannot go unpunished, says Ossigeno -Hoping that solidarity will be concrete, lasting and without distinction and will also help many other journalists who are under threat

 Ossigeno’s Mid Report 2025

/1 – In six months, 361 journalists threatened in Italy, up 78% – 361 threats detected compared to 203 in the same period in 2024 – Intimidation from politicians increases – Lombardy became the region with the most threats

/2  – If ten thousand lawsuits a year seem small to you… – In ten years in Italy, the abuse of criminal defamation proceedings for intimidation purposes against journalists has increased by 100% – The data – The stories of those accused

/3 – Monitoring Summary. Proposals. Dossier. Links – How to understand the Observatory’s latest findings and compare historical data – Legal assistance and support for defendants

The Ossigeno’s monitoring method that detect threats in Italy since 2006 – See methology and criteria by which cases of threats against media workers and attempts to obscure news of public interest are detected, recorded , analyzed and recounted by Ossigeno per l’Informazione in Italy since 2006. This metholology has showed 7900 threateneds, honing it over time in order to reproduce as faithfully as possible the broader context of intimidation in which who in the media suffer the hard way work.

Read more news and information on the Ossigeno website in English  and Italian

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