Dear friends,

Since the beginning of this summer, we have a very successful journalist in our community who contributes regularly to the Film Annex blog. That person is of course Andrea Bettini, a journalist, who writes for the Italian newspaper, Repubblica. Bettini has been informing the Film Annex community about the most recent and crucial news in the entertainment industry for the past few months. So, we decided to interview Bettini about how he chose this profession and where he sees journalism in a few years. Read it below!


F.A. How did you end up becoming a journalist? Was this something you wanted to pursue since childhood, or was it a surprise profession for you?

A.B. In 1998, when I was 17 years old, I went to Florence on a school trip. That afternoon, I was at the Piazza della Signoria with a group of classmates, and suddenly a policemen denied access to the Uffizi Gallery because of a bomb threat, which later turned out to be a false alarm. My friends wanted to run away, but I was too curious and decided to stay (not too close, of course). In a few minutes many journalists arrived there and looking at them, I understood that I wanted a job that could give me the opportunity to see what is happening in the world. I liked writing, so I began to do it for the school newspaper. My first article for a real newspaper, “La Gazzetta di Mantova”, was published a few years later, when I was a college student. Since then, I have never stopped writing.

F.A. When did you realize that you had a passion for cinema and how did you end up using your journalistic skills in expressing this passion?

A.B. I have been interested in cinema ever since childhood. Since I started working as a journalist I have written about many topics, but I obviously tried to specialize on those I loved the most, and cinema was among them.

F.A. If you were to compare Italian journalism to American, what would you say are the similarities and the differences?

A.B. In the US, the distinction between news and views is probably more clear. In Italy many journalists mix these two aspects. It’s a different way of viewing journalism. I think it is important to find a balance: knowing a journalist’s opinion could be useful, but his ideas should not affect his reports.

F.A. How did you start writing for Film Annex, and what are your thoughts on writing for an online film community?

A.B. Last June, Francesco Rulli read one of the articles I wrote for Repubblica.it. He decided to contact me and he proposed to open a blog for me on Film Annex. I thought it was an interesting idea and at the end of July the blog was ready. People seem to like it, at least looking at the stats: the number of unique visitors on my web pages is growing continuously. Writing for Film Annex is a great opportunity to share my opinions about cinema and is also fun, because I get to choose the topic I prefer.

F.A. Where do you see the future of journalism? It seems like more and more people stop buying newspapers and start reading the news online. Do you sense a near change in this fashion, or does it look like online journalism is the future?

A.B. Two years ago I wrote a book about online journalism (www.editpress.it/0603.htm). I think websites will become fundamental and probably the most important news source for people. In a few years this change will cause a lot of difficulties to newspapers. They will lose readers, but I think they will survive at least for a few more decades. TV did not kill radio, why should Internet kill newspapers? Media is usually able to adapt to new technologies.

Any questions? Contact Andrea by visiting his page at www.filmannex.com/fuoricampo.