The regional elections held in Italy over the last weekend saw a clear win by the centre-right coalition. In 2005, the centre-left had won eleven out of the thirteen regions which went to the polls last weekend, only leaving two (the rich northern regions of Lombardy and Veneto) to the centre-right. Yesterday, the centre-right gained four out of these eleven regions, including  Piedmont, Latium and Campania, strengthening Berlusconi’s government and his leadership.

The result was not, however, unequivocally good news for the Prime Minister. Although the result was a much better one than it was expected in the run-up to the election, it was not the triumph Berlusconi was hoping for a few months ago. Back then, he expected to make gains in the southern region of Puglia and in Liguria, the region around Genoa. Moreover, much of his coalition's success was due to the big gains made by the Northern League. Lastly, over 35% of the electorate decided not to go to the polls, an increase of nearly 8% compared to the last regional elections.

Still, these are smaller problems than the ones Berlusconi might have feared. The result is a clear victory for him, something which puzzles many commentators of the foreign press. In particular, they find it hard to see how the right-wing coalition was not penalised following the series of personal and political scandals which involved the Prime Miinster. Over the last few weeks, the opposition had looked regalvanised following allegations that Berlusconi had put pressure on the Communication Authority to act against Michele Santoro’s Annozero, a RAI2 program which is strongly anti-Berlusconi. The decision to block talk shows in the weeks immediately before the elections was then seen in a darker light, and much of the last few weeks of electoral campaign were fought discussing whether or not Italy is a dictatorship.

As the electoral results look more similar to those which people were expecting before the last few weeks of the campaign than to those commentators predicted in the last few days, one could conclude that scandals do not really matter in Italian politics. Berlusconi has been tainted by a several such and has yet succeeded in winning the consensus of the majority of Italians. To prove this point one could even quote an example from the left: the Puglia governor, Nicki Vendola, saw a difficult last few weeks of electoral campaign, as one of his close allies over his first term in office was arrested over allegations of corruption. Despite this scandal, Vendola was one of the very few success stories for the centre-left.

The solution to this puzzle has to do with the growing polarisation of Italian media. Scandals matter, but they only matter when the media unanimously depict them as such. For the centre-right media, there was hardly anything wrong with Berlusconi’s conduct with the Communication Authority, precisely as there was nothing wrong with the libertine lifestyle which led to the divorce with his wife. To the centre-left media, the scandals which affected Nicki Vendola’s government had nothing to do with him as, they argued, he was clearly unaware of his ally's wrongdoings. Unsurprisingly, the only recent scandal to be depicted by all media as such, the one of the Latium governor, Piero Marrazzo, heavily penalised the centre-left despite the generous campaign by their candidate, Emma Bonino.

The growing polarisation of the Italian media is making the role of journalistic inquests less and less important. Their impact on political outcomes will progressively become smaller, contributing to the growth of an untargeted sense of disgust rather than directing it towards any particular politician. Journalists may affect how many people vote, but no longer who is voted in. By choosing to side more and more with politics, Italian journalists are losing much of their power. A shame for them, but also for society as a whole.