Career
In 1942 Scalfari, then a law student at the Sapienza University of Rome, joined the National Fascist Party and the Fascist University Groups (GUF) and started to cooperate with the local GUF magazine Roma Fascista, of which he eventually became editor-in-chief. He also worked with other Fascist publications like the Nuovo Occidente magazine. He was later expelled from the Fascist Party and dismissed from his journalistic positions in 1943 by order of party secretary Carlo Scorza after he had published unsubstantiated articles about alleged real estate speculations of some Fascist hierarchs in the construction of the EUR.
After his law graduation, Scalfari resumed his journalistic career in 1950 and worked for the influential post-war news magazines Il Mondo led by Mario Pannunzio and L'Europeo of Arrigo Benedetti. In 1955, as part of the Amici del Mondo group, he was among the founders of the Radical Party, of which he served as the national vice-secretary from 1958 to 1963.
In October 1955, jointly with Benedetti, Scalfari co-founded one of Italy's foremost news magazines L'Espresso with capital from the progressive industrialist Adriano Olivetti, manufacturer of Olivetti typewriters. The experienced Benedetti, who had directed L'Europeo (1945–1954), was the first editor-in-chief until 1963, when he handed over to Scalfari, who served as the administrative director and collaborator for the economy of L'Espresso until 1962. As an expert in financial mechanisms, Scalfari became the first Italian director manager. From 1963 to 1968, he was the editor of L'Espresso, of which he was also its vice-chairman. From 1970 to 1975, he was also managing director of the L'Espresso publishing company. In January 2016, he recalled that his journalistic career began with his dismissal by Banca Nazionale del Lavoro after his publication of an article.
In January 1976, the Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso launched the daily newspaper La Repubblica in a joint venture with Arnoldo Mondadori Editore; its first issue came out on 14 January, with the slogan "From 14 January, you either believe the official versions or believe La Repubblica". It was also the first Italian newspaper to come out in the tabloid format. At the time, the paper had sixty editors, of which ten were professional journalists, as the others were at their first experience. Scalfari called some trusted colleagues, including Gianni Rocca, Giorgio Bocca, Sandro Viola, Miriam Mafai, Barbara Spinelli, Natalia Aspesi, and Giovanni Valentini. The satirical cartoons were drawn by Giorgio Forattini. The editorial office occupied four rooms in via Po 12 in Rome, the same place of L'Espresso headquarters. The La Repubblica project was not only a way to found a new newspaper but to propose a new school of journalism.
From 1984 to 1992, the newspaper played a role in the evolution of Europeanism and the Italian political left. Scalfari became the editor-in-chief and remained so until 1996, when he was succeeded by Ezio Mauro; he maintained a weekly column. Few believed such a venture could succeed in the already crowded Italian newspaper market; under Scalfari's skilful editorship, La Repubblica prospered to the point of rivaling the prestigious Corriere della Sera in both sales and status as a national daily. Scalfari put cultural pages at the centre of the paper, and remained active in both La Repubblica and L'Espresso. He also published a number of books including the 1969 work L'autunno della Repubblica ("Autumn of the Republic") and the 1998 novel Il labirinto ("The Labyrinth"). With Bernard Guetta, Scalfari had also tried to form a European newspaper based on an alliance between Italy's La Repubblica, France's Le Monde, Spain's El País, and Britain's The Independent. Additionally, he valorized the paper's female journalists, and wrote an article, titled "Feminine at Heart", for D – la Repubblica delle donne. He was the administrator for the paper's finance. In 2007, he abandoned his column Scalfari risponde ("Scalfari Answers") and was replaced by Michele Serra.
In February 1978, about a month before the kidnapping and killing of Aldo Moro, Scalfari was received by Aldo Moro, the former Prime Minister of Italy and the then leader of Christian Democracy (DC), in his studio in Rome. Moro explained to Scalfari his political project, from Giulio Andreotti's government to the alliance with the Italian Communist Party (PCI) with the aim of creating a modern political system in Italy, based on a normal alternation between the centre-left and the centre-right. The first objective, which was also shared by the PCI, was the defeat of the Red Brigades. During the 1980s, Scalfari travelled to the Soviet Union to meet its leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, in Moscow and was enthusiastic about perestroika. He was present to a roundtable in November 1989, where it was proposed by Giulio Tremonti, then a tax advisor to the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) finance minister Rino Formica, the idea of presumptively taxing not individual savers but large brokerage networks, which cost him his job. The context was what became known as liberalizzazione valutaria, the liberalization of capital. After this, no other roundtables were instituted.
