San Giuseppe Jato council cuts funding for press office, journalists protest
The San Giuseppe Jato City Council has cut eight thousand euros for the consultancy expenses of Mayor Giuseppe Siviglia, of Forza Italia, thus also eliminating the funds intended to ensure the information and communication of the Municipality, through the signing of a collaboration contract with a professional journalist. Against the decision, proposed by the minority and approved by the Council with the approval of the budget forecast, representative bodies of journalists, unions, and the Order protest. The Sicilian Press Association, with provincial secretary Gianluca Caltanissetta and regional secretary Giuseppe Rizzuto, fears that “this measure could now result in the renunciation of a professional figure provided for by law 150/2000 and which has the task of ensuring the right to information and administrative transparency for all citizens. It would be an incomprehensible and very serious choice – they continue – especially for a Municipality like San Giuseppe Jato, dissolved for mafia just three years ago and therefore in need of absolute transparency, which only constant information activity can guarantee.”
The Order of Journalists of Sicily, in a statement, condemns the decision: “Once again – it reads – it is the journalists who pay, especially those not protected by contractual guarantees. The Order, as it has already done other times”, criticizes these types of decisions, especially if adopted “by a public administration, recalling that the failure to recognize journalistic work also clearly contradicts what is provided for by law 150 of 2000. The Order of Sicily, moreover, calls for respect for the category and condemns all those initiatives that lead to the abusive exercise of the journalistic profession.”
San Giuseppe Jato, il Consiglio comunale taglia i fondi per l’ufficio stampa: protestano i giornalisti
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