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Enrico Mentana
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Interview
Biography
Born in Milan in 1955, Mentana's first journalistic experience was as editor of
"Giovane Sinistra" (Young Left), the journal of the young socialist federation
with which he had been involved since secondary school, becoming deputy national secretary
at the end of the '70s. In 1989 he joined RAI on the foreign desk of Tg1 (the news
division of RAI1). He made his first on-screen appearance in 1981 as London correspondent
on the occasion of the marriage of Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer.
From there his career progressed rapidly. He became a correspondent for Tg1, and later
chief editor, before becoming deputy editor-in-chief of Tg2. After eleven years at RAI, he
moved to the commercial television company, Fininvest, where he was appointed Head of News
at Canale 5. Under his guidance Canale 5’s news broadcasts rapidly gained
credibility, abandoning their initial political bias. |
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| "I grew up in television" he later affirmed, "I belong to the computer
generation, and I believe that I have learnt the syntax of communication: if an event is
of little importance you dedicate two lines to it, if it is fairly important you do a
report, if it is very important, a live link". In 1993 and 1994 he was moderator of
the current affairs programme "Braccio di ferro", a series of face to face
debates between two political leaders on subjects of topical importance and in 1994 he
presented the late night news and gossip show "Rotocalco" on Canale5. |
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