(ANSA - Rome, August 6 - With Monica Maggioni confirmed as
the new president of public broadcaster RAI, attention shifted
Thursday to the nomination of its director general.
Sources said that Antonio Campo Dall'Orto remained the
choice of Premier Matteo Renzi for the DG position, but the
nomination of Luigi De Siervo was also gaining attention.
On Wednesday, Maggioni, who is at present director of
all-news channel RAInews24, was approved as the public
broadcaster's president after an agreement between Renzi's
centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and the centre-right Forza
Italy (FI).
Her appointment was sealed by a positive vote from RAI's
parliamentary supervisory council - 29 in favor, four against
and five blank ballots.
Earlier in the day, the RAI board of directors had
unanimously approved Maggioni's appointment as president.
The 51-year-old veteran journalist was in Tehran with a
governmental delegation meeting with Iranian officials when she
received the news.
Her name had circulated for weeks as rumours swirled around
the newest appointments to the public broadcaster's management.
However, the anti-establishment, anti-euro 5-Star Movement
(M5S) objected to her candidacy, suggesting she could not
guarantee independence and distance from conflicts of interest.
Similarly, the right-wing Northern League said that
Maggioni was not the right choice, suggesting she was too
closely tied to Italy's establishment.
League leader Matteo Salvini wrote on Facebook: "The new
RAI is not much to my liking".
In contrast, the Senate leader of a mixed caucus of the New
Center Right (NCD) and small centrist UDC parties said Maggioni
was the ideal candidate to lead RAI.
"(Her) authoritativeness and professionalism will guarantee
a high-profile leadership and a quality RAI that looks to the
future," Renato Schifani said.
A native of Milan, Maggioni has been director of RAINews24
since January 2013.
As director of RAI's all-news channel, she made an
executive decision to stop airing videos of horrific beheadings
and other executions made by the Islamic State (ISIS)
fundamentalist insurgency.
"It's become a kind of Hollywood of terror," she said.
"We do not want to become part of their propaganda".
With a degree in foreign languages and master's in
broadcast journalism, Maggioni started out at Il Giorno daily
paper, and Euronews satellite channel.
Hired at RAI in the mid-1990s, she eventually became news
anchor and foreign correspondent for its TG1 news service.
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