UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI PAVIA
Facoltà di Economia, Giurisprudenza, Ingegneria,
Lettere e Filosofia, Scienze Politiche
Corso di Laurea Specialistica Interfacoltà in
Editoria e Comunicazione Multimediale
I LIMITI DEL DIRITTO DI CRONACA.
IL CASO SARAH SCAZZI
The limits of freedom of press.
The Sarah Scazzi case
Relatore:
Chiar.mo Prof. Stefano Colloca
Correlatore:
Chiar.mo Prof. Giampaolo Azzoni
Tesi di laurea di
Stefania Scalercio
Introduction
The issue
I first addressed the issue of the limits of freedom of press and its
balance with other rights that ought to be protected.
The effective exercise
Secondly, I analyzed the effective exercise of freedom of press and
its limits in the recent and not yet concluded case of Sarah Scazzi.
A deontological analysis
For methodological requirements I have analized in depth the
journalistic treatment of the case only in Italy and the period
between September 1 and November 30, 2010, period in which the
turning points of the survey took place.
I have analized 623 news rerports.
The Freedom of Press
The freedom of press is the freedom of an individual in telling the
facts as they occur and by any suitable means.
It is considered the basis of the information and contempory
democracies
The journalist has the duty to bring a version of the facts that fits
the reality entirety
Decalogue Sentence
n. 5259/1984
of the Court of Cassation
Enhanced Protection: the
right of the individual may
succumbs to the
information need
The Limits of the Freedom of Press
• Truth: substantial correspondence between the facts as they
happened and how they are narrated. Strict or putative, provided that
they are the result of a diligent and serious research on the sources;
• Relevance: existence of a clear public interest of the knowledge of the
facts in relation to their relevance to the community and the formation
of public opinion;
• Continence: civil form of the narration of facts, which should not
exceed to the information objective.
Freedom of the Press and
Respect for the Person
• Right to personal identity: everybody can be
represented with his true identity;
• Right to privacy: a fact must be considered private when
its spread has no social utility;
• Protection of honor: feeling and opinion that the subject
has of his/her value;
• Protection of reputation: the esteem which the
individual has within a given social environment;
• Right to oblivion : a person's interest not to stay
indefinitely exposed to the damage caused by repeated
publication of a story in the past lawfully disclosed.
The public interest marks the limit beyond which the protection
of personal privacy is weakened
exceptional
event
is absolute in relation to the facts of crime
seriousness
of the event
narrative of freedom guaranteed by Article 6,
paragraph 1 of the Codice deontologico
relativo al trattamento dei dati personali
nell’esercizio dell’attività giornalistica
Materiality of the
information
History of the Sarah Scazzi Case
 August 26, 2010: disappearance of the fifteen years old Avetrana girl
(Taranto);
 September 29, 2010: discovery of the girl’s cellular phone by the uncle;
 October 7, 2010: After confession, Michele Misseri, let investigators
find Sarah's body;
 October 15, 2010: Sabrina Misseri is detained for cooperation in the
murder of her cousin;
 February 23, 2011: Carmine Misseri and Cosimo Cosma are arrested
because they were accused of conspiring to corpse
suppression;
 March 9, 2011: Misseri’s brother and his nephew return to freedom.
An Investigation into the Violated Rights
- horrifying background,
disastrous revelations
- Lack of respect against
persons involved in the story
-Description of Avetrana
as a silence and retrograde
town
appeal from
the Journalists Order
An Investigation into the Violated Rights
Publication of audio recordings
of interrogations regarding
the murder
Committee for the implementation of
the codice di autoregolamentazione in
materia
di rappresentazioni delle vicende
giudiziarie nelle trasmissioni televisive
Address by the Garante della privacy
Amendment of a seizure order, with the
value of assurance information and
paper copies of audio and video files
stored on magnetic tapes in Italy
The Chronicle of the Violated
Rights of Children
Sarah Scazzi (15 years old)
1a phase
Missing child
Art. 7, paragraph 3,
Codice deontologico
and
Carta di Treviso
2a phase
Dead child
The Codice deontologico does not
contain specific references. The only
study in the Carta di Treviso is in
relation to the case of suicide
"The child's right to confidentiality must always be considered as
primary to the right of criticism and commentary"
The Chronicle of the Violated
Rights of Children
Children witnesses of
morbid taste and
cynical representation of pain
The freedom of press must not exceed the limit of good
sense and delicate emotional fragility of children
Codice in materia di Media e Minori
The Public Opinion Attention
Ascertain the truth or satisfaction of
curiosity?
• Crime not completed within criminal organizations
but in an apparently normal context;
THE CAUSES
• change in mentality and lifestyle of our society,
which is located also in the success of noir fiction;
• use by media of the criteria typical of story and
narrative, in comparison to those in journalism;
• existence of morbid voyeurism in each of us;
The Public Opinion Attention
• perverse craving for knowledge and a strong need to know;
THE CONSEQUENCES
• feelings of apathy in front of murders and violent events;
• inability to distinguish fact from fiction.
The Public Opinion Attention
The Mechanism of Audience
Because of the exceptional nature of the news, the
most atrocious crimes arouse public impressive
attention
The Sarah Scazzi case could not be
addressed in a less deep way
COMMON INFORMATION MODELS
CRITERIA FOR ECONOMIC COMPETITION
High audience is not an indicator of high quality or
high appreciation from the public
AUDIENCE > ADVERTISING REVENUE >
This mechanism,
however, has
no right to
invoke the more
macabre and
morbid details
of the story
Deontological Analysis
THE PRESS
Deontological Analysis
RELEVANCE
8
CONTINENCE
3
osservanza dei
criteri
18
31
20
54
32
4
On 85 articles analyzed, 31 didn’t observe the criteria of relevance and 54
didn’t observe the criteria of continence.
inosservanza:
livello di
violazione
basso
inosservanza:
livello di
violazione
medio
inosservanza:
livello di
violazione alto
Deontological Analysis
RELEVANCE
25
CONTINENCE
10
24
41
256
19
osservanza dei
criteri
7
inosservanza:
livello di
violazione
basso
inosservanza:
livello di
violazione
medio
282
On 332 articles analyzed, 76 didn’t observe the criteria of relevance and 50
didn’t observe the criteria of continence.
inosservanza:
livello di
violazione alto
Deontological Analysis
THE WEB
Deontological Analysis
RELEVANCE
2 1
CONTINENCE
osservanza dei
criteri
2
inosservanza:
livello di
violazione
basso
inosservanza:
livello di
violazione
medio
43
44
On 46 articles analyzed, 3 didn’t observe the criteria of relevance and 2
didn’t observe the criteria of continence.
inosservanza:
livello di
violazione alto
Deontological Analysis
TV NEWS
Deontological Analysis
RELEVANCE
CONTINENCE
3
5
5
7
21
2
7
20
osservanza dei
criteri
inosservanza:
livello di
violazione
basso
inosservanza:
livello di
violazione
medio
inosservanza:
livello di
violazione alto
On 35 news repotrs analyzed, 14 didn’t observe the criteria of relevance and
15 didn’t observe the criteria of continence.
Deontological Analysis
RELEVANCE
CONTINENCE
6
osservanza
dei criteri
8
7
20
2
5
2
20
inosservanza:
livello di
violazione
basso
inosservanza:
livello di
violazione
medio
inosservanza:
livello di
violazione
alto
On 35 news reports analyzed, 15 didn’t observe the criteria of relevance and
15 didn’t observe the criteria of continence.
Deontological Analysis
RELEVANCE
3
CONTINENCE
3
32
32
On 35 news reports analyzed, 3 didn’t observe the criteria of relevance and
3 didn’t observe the criteria of continence.
osservanza
dei criteri
inosservanza:
livello di
violazione
basso
inosservanza:
livello di
violazione
medio
inosservanza:
livello di
violazione
alto
Deontological Analysis
RELEVANCE
CONTINENCE
osservanza dei
criteri
2
4
5
14
12
6
5
22
inosservanza:
livello di
violazione
basso
inosservanza:
livello di
violazione
medio
inosservanza:
livello di
violazione alto
On 35 news reports analyzed, 21 didn’t observe the criteria of relevance and
13 didn’t observe the criteria of continence.
Dossier European
Observatory on Sicurity
• ample space everyday dedicated to criminal acts;
• crimes treated as fiction and drama;
• shift of pubblic attention from social issues to crime
700
600
500
400
di cui Caso Scazzi
300
Criminalità
200
100
0
STUDIO
APERTO
TG5
TG4
TG1
TG2
TG3
TG LA7
Deontological Analysis
MAGAZINE PROGRAMS
Deontological Analysis
“Porta a Porta”, “Matrix” and “Quarto Grado” have searched in
the Sarah and characters of the story’s life
revealing information not
belonging to journalism
violating the right to
privacy and the right to
presumption of innocence
Conclusion
Motivation of the media success of
Sarah Scazzi case:
Ethical duties not respected:
1.
Emotional envolvement;
1.
Materiality of information;
2.
High plays;
2.
3.
Low cost;
Respect for the dignity of
the person;
3.
Presumption of innocence;
4.
Rights of children.
4.
5.
Narrative technique of seriality,
Self-body information;