The journalist's job is to report the truth, but there are places by for doing this, reporters put their lives at risks. Not only in Pakistan and Mexico, which were the most deadly countries for journalists in 2010, but also in Calabria, in southern Italy.

Journalists under threat in this region were the subject of of the session entitled "Calabria: siren land" held yesterday at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy.

It emerged that life for journalists who just want to do their job - to report fact - could become really dangerous in Calabria. Bullets shot at a car, intimidating phone calls, burnt cars, letters containing death threats: twenty journalists were heavily threatened just in 2010, said "Ossigeno per l'informazione 2010", a report on information and journalism on the news overshadowed by violence in Italy.
Lucio Musolino is now freelance journalist, reporting on organized crime in southern Italy for the TV channel LA7 and the daily Il Fatto Quotidiano. Previously, he was a reporter for the regional newspaper Calabria Ora, from which he was fired after - he claims - having investigated alleged links between organised crime and local politicians. Those articles broke the equilibrium between the editorial direction of the paper and its publisher and soon after, nine employees resigned, included the editor-in-chief.

After having published articles on a police operation involving 'Ndrangheta criminals, who had been arrested, and the alleged connections with some politicians, he received threats, including a bottle of petrol under his house.

"This is not just my story, but that of a group of colleagues. Suddenly we didn't work for our newspaper anymore", he said. "We didn't anything particularly heroic, we have just done our work in a place where accuracy is an anomaly".

After those articles Musolino noticed that his pieces started to be cut and censored. Every time he mentioned the name of Calabrian governor, for example, it was deleted. When he complained he was offered a transfer, and finally he was fired. Recently, a judge was ordered to reinstatement him.

This is a story that is emblematic of news in Calabria, he said - news is "drugged." There is news that doesn't get out, and there is a grey zone that surrounds and favours the 'Ndrangheta.

The problem for journalists is that they often are left alone, with no support.

"The 'Ndrangheta is angry with journalists for the same reasons it's angry with magistrates and police", said Pierpaolo Bruni, state prosecutor of Catanzaro.

"The most effective way to fight organized crime is to reduce the fog around omertà [the conspiracy of silence] that surrounds the 'Ndrangheta. We magistrates have the task of dealing with crimes. Journalists, on the other hand, have the important task of clearing the fog, disclosing not only crimes, but all kinds of improper behaviour".

Roberto Rosso is a journalist and author, together with Roberta Mani, of the book "Avamposto, nella Calabria dei giornalisti infami" (Outpost, in Calabria, land of infamous journalists).

"When we first arrived in Calabria in 2008 what shocked us was the gap between local information and national news. There is so much news that is not published on the national newspapers". Especially, he noticed, there was silence about colleagues who have been threatened. For every threatened journalist there are many more who don't do their job properly due to fear.

"Information about the violence that surrounds journalists in Calabria is a sort of a media security bodyguard: the more a story is known, the more a person becomes public, the more is difficult that something happen to that person", he said.

In past years local newspapers were used to consigning local information about organised crime in the last pages, without providing an overall view on it. But in the last years things are changed due to two new newspapers, Quotidiano di Calabria and Calabria Ora, which have started to do a new type of journalism, talking about the mafia in a systematic way, providing a complete frame for analyse the situation. But, actually, now, he noted, Quotidiano di Calabria is not the same as it was.

What is important - all the speakers noted - is that journalists unite, and are not left alone.

Sources: Ossigeno 2010