How Journalism Invented the Mafia. The Case of the Palermitan Newspaper «L’Ora» (1954-75)

The first Italian republican age (1946-60) was defined as the period of the "long armistice" between the State and the mafia. The national government and the Sicily Region were controlled by the Christian Democrats. This season saw the passage of many mafia leaders from right-wing parties to the Catholic one, but also a high political and social conflict, with peasant struggles and dozens of unionists eliminated by gangs. For the government and ecclesiastical circles the mafia issue had become, therefore, a taboo. In opposition to this armistice were the leftists, and especially the communists, who founded their anti-mafia identity on the peasant epic. After the launch of the agrarian reform in 1950, the collective struggles petered out, even though they remained by far the backbone of left-wing political culture. The other theme dear to the communists since the immediate post-war period was regional autonomy. Both perspectives were endorsed, from 1954, by «L'Ora», the Palermo newspaper published in the afternoon, when the PCI wanted it among its flanking newspapers. The direction was entrusted to the Calabrian Vittorio Nisticò, who managed the revival of the newspaper with intelligence and professionalism. He remained in charge for twenty years, until 1975, delivering to history an extraordinary journalistic experience. The newspaper is mainly remembered for its pioneering battle against the mafia. After the first reportage of autumn 1958, it became the privileged place for debate. Hence the tendency of public discourse to make it, in an oversimplified way, the anti-mafia newspaper by definition. Actually, the experience of Nisticò’s «L’Ora» was much more complex. A significative aspect of its activity concerns the “invention” of the mafia as a topic of public and political discussion, through an intense and multifaced investigation work. Analysing its journalistic inquires in the historical context of the period, this study intends to highlight how its depiction of the mafia reflected, at the same time, real aspects of the phenomena, but also the culture of the observers. This was the result of the intersection between communist tradition, political interests, literature and investigative journalism. Morover the research explores this experience as a transition from an old to a new way of fighting the mafia.