On the alleged faults of archaeologists. Open letter to Mario Giordano

Dear Dr. Giordano,

as I was reading the article you signed today for the newspaper Libero(All the fault of archaeologists), I could not resist the temptation to ask myself a question: what are the qualities that should belong to a good journalist? Each reporter will have his or her own idea on the subject, but I find interesting the arguments with which British historian as well as journalist Timothy Garton Ash answered the question in his recent work (it came out just a couple of months ago for Yale University Press), Free Speech. I attempt to summarize the main ones by translating from the original: “try to seek the truth, or at least an important part of it,” “analyze all possible sources, including those that are difficult or dangerous to reach,” "do fact checking and conduct explicit assessments of the quality of supporting evidence,“ and finally ”try to tell the story, or describe, show, explain and analyze it as clearly and limpidly as possible, and making sure that the content is accessible to an audience that would otherwise have no way of accessing it.“ Always keeping in mind that, quoting Bill Kovach and Thomas Rosenstiel, ”the first obligation of the journalist is to tell the truth."

It is a job of great responsibility, you will agree. And I would like to know how the search for truth, and with it the responsibility that should follow, can be reconciled with the piece you wrote today for the columns of Libero. I would like to know because, I confess to you very humbly, in this article I found none of the qualities listed above. On the contrary: I found a good dose of that “journalistic cynicism” from which another great journalist, Ryszard KapuÅ?ciÅ?ski, advised to keep well away. Culture in general and archaeology in particular are incredibly mistreated subjects in our country: I could tell you stories of young PhDs employed in excavations for which they receive little pocket money, I could tell you about their colleagues forced to emigrate abroad because of the few opportunities offered by our country, I could tell you about the excavations that often come to a halt because of insufficient personnel (the Ministry of Cultural Heritage is severely understaffed: in 2014 it had just over eighteen thousand employees, compared to 25,050 in 1997). But suffice it to say that the category is not doing well at all. Therefore, to see oneself blamed for a tragedy that caused the deaths of so many people, albeit for provocative purposes (such in fact I imagine was your intent: I doubt very much that a journalist of your experience would really be able to find in archaeologists a sort of scapegoat), is truly offensive, it is an insult to a category composed in its overwhelming majority of people who work in a serious, conscientious and professional way. Imagine how archaeologists must have felt when they saw themselves slammed on the front page in this way, and when they read that You wanted to recognize in the findings “one of the reasons why 23 Christians were condemned to death,” among other things with an emphasis that is completely out of place and with an expression such as “condemned to death” that is totally inappropriate.

While I have to remind you that the real culprits of the rail disaster will be identified by the competent bodies, I nevertheless feel I must categorically rule out that part of the blame lies with a professional, Dr. Michele Sicolo, who simply did his job exactly as he was supposed to do it, that is, by drawing up a document, the archaeological impact assessment, which listed the archaeological interferences, that is, the findings with which the construction of the track doubling in the section affected by the accident would have had to deal. Such documents are signed by archaeologists whenever work is planned on areas affected, precisely, by finds: is it not crazy, then, that one can write (albeit, probably, with cynical and instrumental irony) that “the relatives of the victims of the train massacre in Puglia” should take issue with “the index of geoarchaeological persistence” and the “pebbles,” “stones,” and “ceramic fragments” found along the route of the railway? Does it make sense to use, in an article intended for a newspaper targeting a non-specialist audience, the scientific lexicon of the paper with the not even too veiled purpose of opposing normal practices and terms of the subject to “southern modernization”? Does it make sense to scoff at a technical report by picking on the slangy Italian used in the document, making inappropriate similarities with Piero Angela’s “Quark reports” (blatantly wrong example, moreover, since Quark is a popular program and designed for a large audience-the exact opposite of a technical document) and calling the arguments listed by the professional in the paper “abstruse”? Do not worry too much about the fact that, as you assert in the article, neither you nor perhaps your audience understood anything: it is a subject for specialists, so it would not be surprising.

Of course, I do not expect you to answer the above questions. You will probably not even read this open letter. However, you will surely have already taken a look at the response that the archaeologists’ associations wanted to give you a few hours ago. I would like to say that it is a communiqué from which it denotes the great dignity with which the category is used to working. A category “that works among a thousand difficulties the preservation and enhancement of the common cultural heritage” and therefore cannot stand any attempt of “journalistic jackalry” that is perpetrated “speculating on the pain of families and all Italians.” A grief that yours truly joins, along with the entire staff of Windows on Art. Analyses should be conducted cold, or at least they should be conducted with respect for everyone, with lucidity, with valid and sensible arguments, with clarity and with the goal of arriving at reconstructing the truth. Certainly, they should not be based on rants against the reputation of others, nor should they bring up professionals who, quite simply, are simply doing their jobs.

Kind regards,

Federico Giannini - Founder of Windows on Art

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