- Pritzker Fellows
- Former Fellows
- Maria Latella
Maria Latella
Political TV Show Host, Author & Columnist for Il Messaggero from Italy
Spring 2016 Pritzker Fellow
Seminar Series: “Tycoons, Media, & Terrorism - Europe & the U.S. in 2016”
Biography
Maria Latella is a political journalist based in Italy and France with a presence on TV, radio and as a print columnist.
She hosts “The Interview” each Sunday on SkyTV (Sky Italy), which has been voted Italy’s best political show, winning the prestigious Ischia award. Latella also hosts an hour-long program focused on issues related to women and work on Radio 24. Additionally, she is a columnist for the Rome daily, Il Messaggero, and also maintains a blog, Tendenza Latella (The Latella Tendency). She is one of the most followed political journalists in Italy on Twitter.
Latella has written several books, including her most recent title, “The Power of Women.” She also wrote “Tendenza Veronica,” the first and only biography of Veronica Berlusconi, and “Come si Conquista un Paese” (How You Conquer a Country) on Silvio Berlusconi’s rise to power.
Maria Latella began her career as a journalist in 1980 on the crime and city desk of the Secolo XIX daily in Genoa. From 1990 to 2005 she served as political editor of Corriere della Sera. In 2005, she became editor-in-chief of the leading weekly magazine “A,” published by the group Rizzoli-Corriere della Sera. For the past 11 years she has worked for Sky Italy.
Maria Latella has received many professional and academic awards, including an award for best political coverage for her Sky interviews, and is a “Dame of the Italian Republic,” one of the highest honors the state offers. She was nominated by President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.
Seminars
“Tycoons, Media, & Terrorism - Europe & the U.S. in 2016”
Welcome to Europe, where since the end of the 20th century billionaire candidates with no political experience are as familiar as bombs on subways, laments over a broken political system and the claim that immigrants are to blame for just about everything.
In a series of five seminars, award-winning Italian journalist Maria Latella will cover how former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's rise to power is a blueprint for Donald Trump's popularity; how tycoons play a role in contemporary politics; the effect of social media and big data on the electorate; and how the migrant crisis and terrorism have changed Europe. A political journalist, commentator and standard bearer for women's rights in politics and business in Europe, Latella is well placed to shine a light on how the turn in the United States to anti-establishment politics and politicians will play out both today and in the years to come.
Streaming across the page of an Italian newspaper is a headline that got it just right: “He's the same, only shorter." The similarities between former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Donald Trump are powerful and telling. Both Berlusconi and Trump are billionaires. Both started as builders. Both are narcissists, with a passion for beautiful women and serial marriages or love affairs. And Berlusconi like Trump speaks in sound bites. "Make America Great Again" is highly reminiscent of the slogan for Berlusconi’s 1994 campaign: "For a Great Italian Miracle." There are, however, differences between these two men - some significant ones. In this seminar, Latella, who followed Berlusconi’s career from the beginning, will explore the tycoon-turned-politician model from its beginnings in America with Ross Perot, to Berlusconi, to French businessman Bernard Tapie, through to today’s successes of Donald Trump.
France now has the "Generation Bataclan," a name for the twenty-somethings who died during the Isis-inspired attack during a concert at the Bataclan theater on Nov. 13, 2015. And they were not the only ones: there were six different shootings in and near Paris, killing a total of 130 people who were simply trying to live their lives. Before that, it was the attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher grocery store. How has Paris changed since then? And what effect is the memory of the terrorist attacks having on the mood of all Europeans and their daily lives? We'll also talk about Cologne after the aggressions suffered by women celebrating in the streets on New Year's Eve, and in Rome, where following the events of Paris, even the Vatican's Jubilee has seen a significantly reduced number of pilgrims. Europeans claim not to be influenced by jihadist threats, but in reality, how has the lifestyle changed?
Special Guest: Enrico Letta, former Italian Prime Minister
Technology, big data and social media have dramatically changed how voters get information in both America and Europe. In this seminar, we’ll ask what moves voters today and why? Are voters still as influenced by TV debates as they were when John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon went head-to-head in 1960, or is a tweet by Donald Trump or a Facebook post by Hillary Clinton powerful enough to influence the average woman or man? What about in Europe? Is the story there the same? We’ll discuss the media, elections, and the power of big data on both sides of the Atlantic.
Special Guest: Linda Douglass, Global Head of Communications for Bloomberg Media & former Communications Director for the White House Office of Health Reform (President Obama)
The wave of migration that has affected Europe since summer 2015 is a great concern for all European governments. For many years immigrants have flooded across the border between Mexico and the U.S., just as now they are braving the crossing from North Africa to reach Italy and Greece or are packed into trucks crossing Turkey from Syria. Building walls - or simply talking about it - is a popular theme among populists on both sides of the Atlantic, starting with the Hungarian Viktor Orbán and including Donald Trump’s current campaign. Spring of 2016 is cause for great concern. In Brussels, at European Union headquarters, leaders are looking with alarm at semi-bellicose clash between Austria and Greece. The fear is that the line started by Orbán will find new followers. Europe had its frontiers opened by the Schengen Treaty of 1985. If the border closes again, the problems become more complicated for many countries, including Italy. Migrants would be stuck in one country, which is already at risk because of social tensions, and at the same time, the cost of exporting goods would be unsustainable for Italian companies. This seminar will discuss the effects and the forecasts for Italy and Europe.
Special Guests: The Honorable Roberta Pinotti, Italian Minister of Defense & Maurizio Molinari, Italian Journalist and Editor in Chief of the Daily La Stampa
What is this thing called populism? The word evokes Argentina, marked forever by the experience of Juan Domingo Peron, but also Europe of the last century, which saw the rise and fall of two populist leaders Mussolini and Hitler. Populism usually emerges in periods of intense economic frustration and widespread anxiety about the future. It's the “psychology of frustration” that compels people to be influenced by demagogues. Through the analysis of past European populism and present examples such as France’s National Front, Italy’s Five Star Movement, Spain’s Podemos and Greece’s Syriza we will discuss with a well-known French intellectual the basis for the psychological frustration that drives voters in Europe and the United States.
Special Guests: Marc Lazar, Professor of History and Political Sociology at the Paris Institute of Political Studies & Luigi Zingales, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance at UChicago Booth School of Business