AGCOM, the Italian communications watchdog authority, has imposed fines on five national newscasts for violating elections rules by allowing prime minister Silvio Berlusconi to rally voter on air ahead of a second round of local polls without including opposition views, adnkronos reported.

The regulator body imposed the maximum permitted fine of €258,230 on the TG1, the newscast of the principal public broadcasting channel RAI, and on TG4, one of the Berlusconi's private Mediaset news bulletins, since they are repeat offenders, and fines of €100,000 each on TG2, the second public channel, TG5 and Studio Aperto, again owned by Berlusconi's Mediaset, Corriere della Sera reported.

As the adnkronos article explained, in a series of interviews aired 20 May, Berlusconi sought to mobilise his centre-right political base for the mayoral run-offs being held this weekend in many Italian cities, branding the centre-left opposition as "extremist".

There are seven national news channels in Italy, so only two newscasts, the last public one TG3 and La7 were not fined.

"The authority reaffirms that a duty of balance and completeness of information remains in force until the conclusion of the election campaign while second-round voting is under way". Finally, the watchdog authority pointed out that "the ban on publishing survey results on voting intentions remains in force throughout Italy until completion of the second round of the administrative elections", Corriere della Sera said.

On Sunday 29 and Monday 30 in Italy there will be the second round, as nobody obtained a majority in the first round of mayoral elections in some important Italian cities, like Naples and Milan, Berlusconi's home town and original political stronghold.

In March the authority had already imposed fines on TG1 and TG4, stressing for a re-balancing in the time devoted to each political party during the election period. Not only did the two channels not observe the guidelines, but they also reiterated the matter.

Today newspaper headlines reported the news with an emphasis on the fact that the behaviour of the main newscasts should be considered scandalous, but actually not respecting the authority's recommendations is more of a habit than an exception, wrote the European Journalism Observatory. Despite several precedents, the watchdog's regulations are often without effects and mainly unheeded.

Big changes should be made, for example by raising the amount of fines, and revamping the structure and effectiveness of the authority in order to reach a real credibility and authoritativeness, the article suggested.

During recent weeks the campaign aroused Italy and made newspaper front-pages. What really stood out, however, is the role of the Internet.

In Milan the election race between the center-right candidate outgoing mayor Letizia Moratti and the center-left contender Giuliano Pisapia became a race of old media against the web. As Linkiesta noted, Pisapia has more than 53 millions fans on Facebook and vigorously used social media during the whole campaign, while Berlusconi's candidate Moratti continued to rely on old media, TV above all.

For the first time Twitter and Facebook entered the competition and led the communication channels, prompting student involvement.

Yesterday, as Il Post reported, a suspicious Twitter user asked Moratti's Twitter account about the mayor's position on an invented mosque on a made-up street of the city.
The mayor staff promptly answered, ignoring the fact that the names were invented, provoking endless hilarity around the Internet and in the media.

Sources: adnkronos, Corriere della Sera, Linkiesta, Il Post, EJO