PERUGIA (ITALPRESS) – “Newsstands are dying. It is no longer news, it is a slow agony before everyone’s eyes. The problem is that this death is not even accompanied by a vigil. No one really cares except those who are directly involved, and that is the biggest tragedy. Because when a newsstand dies, you don’t just close a business: you extinguish a cultural beacon, often the last one left in the neighborhoods of our country’s cities and towns.” Thus opens the editorial by Sergio Casagrande, editor of the Corriere dell’Umbria, on the disappearing newsstands throughout Italy. “Our readership is growing, projects are advancing, results are not lacking. But none of this is enough to stop the inexorable closure of newsstands,” Casagrande stresses. “Because, let’s face it, it is no longer a battle we can continue to fight alone.
The problem has now overtaken our forces, and it is time for national and local institutions, the government, and politicians to take a stand. And, above all, that they intervene by doing something much more concrete than the little that has been done so far.”
According to Casagrande, “although scenarios have changed and digital frontiers have expanded the possibilities for information to travel, print media is still alive and plays a very important role in culture and society, but it is running out of touch points with readers.”
“We call on institutions to take action. It is no longer enough to complain about categories even if they are authoritative such as Fieg, Fnsi and the organizations representing newsstanders: we need a serious political strategy,” the director writes. Incentives to support newsstands, strong tax breaks, initiatives to promote the reading of the printed press. Because saving newsstands means saving a piece of cultural identity, a garrison of democracy, a place of confrontation and diversity.” “The government and parliament cannot stand idly by,” he highlights, appealing “to those who can make a difference: the time to act is now. Newsstands are the last bastion of a culture in danger of disappearing. Saving them means saving a country that still aspires to be free, informed and alive.”
– Photo: Photogram Agency –
(ITALPRESS).
