Information as a common good: CILD proposals to bolster RAI’s independence
The quality of a democracy also depends on the quality of its information space. Access to free, reliable, pluralistic and independent information is an essential condition for participating meaningfully in public life, exercising one’s rights and holding institutions to account.
It is from this perspective that CILD has developed, within the framework of the STRIVE-2026 project, a research and advocacy initiative focusing on media freedom and pluralism in Italy and, in particular, on the role of public service media.
STRIVE-2026 is supported through a regranting programme of the Civil Liberties Union for Europe (Liberties), with the support of the European Union. The project is part of CILD’s broader work on media freedom and freedom of expression and also marks the launch of the Informazione bene comune (Information as a Common Good) campaign. Its aim is to address media freedom not only as an issue concerning journalists, publishers and media professionals, but as one of the fundamental components of the country’s democratic quality.
This work has resulted in a package of three complementary resources, each serving a different purpose: a Legal and Policy Report, an Advocacy Brief, and a Roadmap for RAI reform.
Information as democratic infrastructure
The starting point of the Legal and Policy Report, “Informazione bene comune: perché la libertà dei media riguarda la democrazia” (Information as a Common Good: Why Media Freedom Matters for Democracy), is a shift in perspective.
The transformations of recent decades – from media ownership concentration to the economic crisis of journalism, from the growing centrality of digital platforms to physical and legal threats against journalists – show that today it is no longer sufficient to think of media freedom solely in terms of the absence of censorship or direct state interference.
Information should be regarded as a common good, while the network of actors, institutions, rules and technologies that enable its production, distribution and accessibility should be understood as genuine democratic infrastructure.
In this context, the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) represents a particularly significant development. For the first time, the European Union has introduced a comprehensive framework addressing various aspects of the media and information environment.
For CILD, the implementation of the Regulation represents an opportunity that Italy should use not only to formally bring its legislation into line with European rules, but also to address some of the structural weaknesses of its information ecosystem.
Reclaiming RAI: rethinking public service media
One of the main testing grounds is RAI.
Given its size, nationwide reach, production capacity and presence across different platforms, public service media remains one of the most important actors in Italy’s information space. For this very reason, its independence is not simply a matter of RAI’s internal organisation: it affects the quality of the entire democratic information ecosystem.
This is the focus of the Advocacy Brief “Reclaiming RAI: Public Service Media Independence as Democratic Infrastructure.”
Article 5 of the EMFA introduces European standards for the editorial and functional independence of public service media and requires concrete safeguards concerning the procedures for appointing and dismissing management, the duration of mandates, funding and monitoring mechanisms.
The current Italian system still presents significant shortcomings in relation to these standards. The question should therefore not simply be who appoints RAI’s leadership, but rather what rules can protect its independence regardless of the political majority in power.
A roadmap for reform
Alongside its analysis, CILD puts forward a number of practical recommendations.
The “Reclaiming RAI” Roadmap identifies a minimum set of conditions against which to assess whether a reform is genuinely consistent with the EMFA: public procedures and pre-established criteria for appointments; qualified majorities preventing the governing coalition alone from controlling the Board of Directors; sufficiently long mandates that do not coincide with the political cycle; adequate, predictable and multiannual funding; and an independent system for monitoring the implementation of Article 5 of the EMFA.
The Roadmap also proposes a process that starts with a gap analysis of Italian legislation and moves through the development of legislative measures, dialogue with national and European institutions, and ultimately the assessment of the effective implementation of the new safeguards.
The objective is to establish a model that protects the independence of public service media by institutional design, rather than by contingent political balance.
Next steps
In the coming weeks, CILD will launch a public campaign on RAI reform, organise a series of meetings with policymakers, and hold a workshop open to stakeholders working on these issues to jointly discuss the future of media and information in Italy.
