Everything we should know about Rai but have never dared to ask. Or maybe we never wanted to see

An unprecedented journey into the corridors of Viale Mazzini, where the game of our democracy is being played

Today the Italian public service is an exception among European ones. An exception in a negative way, though. Unlike the other big public television companies, starting with the BBC, Rai is absent from the places where much of the information circulates: no longer just on television and radio, but also on the web, on social media, on apps. Carlo Verdelli was the director for coordinating Rai's information offerings between November 26, 2015 and January 3, 2017, when he resigned after presenting a radical reform plan for the public service: 470 pages of analysis, international comparisons, and proposals. His idea was to make Rai a modern company, with information present on all channels and free from party pressure, because the public sphere must be protected with an information service capable of communicating with citizens. Carlo Verdelli guides us through the rooms and corridors of Viale Mazzini, and explains why reforming the public service and removing it from the quicksand of Roman power is impossible. He tells in detail what interests are preventing a much-needed and urgent reform. And it shows why and to whom it suits that things do not change. With the era of traditional parties over, the great transmission chains that built the country's cultural identity have broken down. And the problem of information has become more crucial to democracy than ever before.