Silvio Berlusconi's good news machine

The Italian PM's new taskforce couldn't possibly be a propaganda unit, could it? After all, it's just there to boost tourism

In 1937, dictator Benito Mussolini founded the MinCulPop – the ministry for popular culture – a governmental propaganda office, with the clear purpose of controlling media and spreading the government's official version of facts. MinCulPop was responsible for selecting the news that could be reported nationwide, and for filing the articles and dispatches sent to newsrooms and radio stations. It was a way for the Duce to impose a positive vision of the country, hiding factual truths. Mussolini believed that all bad news needed to be prevented and that Italy should be depicted as a happy, florid country. The word propaganda was very carefully avoided and so were news items that could shed a negative light on Italy. No great surprise for a fascist dictatorship. Seventy-two years after the foundation of MinCulPop, Italy has announced the 21st century version of it... Guardian