Because Il Sole journalists criticize the leaders of the Sole 24 Ore group
Detailed document from the editorial committee of the newspaper Sole 24 Ore on the company's accounts and the salaries of the top management of the editorial group controlled by Confindustria
Is Il Sole 24 Ore still a newspaper? This is the question, in secret, that the editorial committee of the economic-financial newspaper asked itself in its speech at the group's shareholders' meeting which approved the 2023 budget.
Here are numbers, facts and controversies in the Confindustria newspaper directed by Fabio Tamburini.
HOW THE SOLE 24 ORE GROUP'S ACCOUNTS ARE GOING
On 29 April the shareholders' meeting of Il Sole 24 Ore took note – we read on the Radiocor-Sole 24 Ore agency – of the consolidated results for the 2023 financial year which closed with a positive net result of 7.7 million, an improvement of 7.2 million compared to 2022, consolidated revenues of 215.1 million euros, up by 3.5 million euros (+1.7%), a net financial position of -22.2 million euros, an improvement of 21.6 million euros compared to the previous year, and a positive net financial position before IFRS 16 of 17.5 million euros (-4.4 million euros at 31 December 2022). The meeting also approved the financial statements of the parent company and resolved to allocate the operating result, equal to 7,707,675 euros, 826,029 euros to fully cover losses from previous years carried forward and 6,881,646 euros to the item Net worth “retained earnings”.
POSITIVE BUDGET AT THE EXPENSE OF SOLE 24 ORE JOURNALISTS
The journalists' considerations start from a positive fact: the group's balance sheet, after many years, closes positive with a significant profit. The result, however, would not have been achieved by enhancing what should be the core business of a newspaper, news, but through other methods, other initiatives that only marginally have to do with information, the newspaper's editorial committee points out of Confindustria: the reduction of personnel costs and the development of production lines for marketing, advertising, events and training.
THE NEW PHYSIOOMY OF THE DEL SOLE 24 ORE GROUP
An organization that gives the group, according to journalists, a new appearance. “Since the corporate presentation of the group's main summary data for the 2023 financial year, the emphasis has been placed on the development of products in the professional services and training area and on the good performance of the events area (8 million in revenues) – we read in the press release from the Cdr of the Confindustria newspaper -. With the editorial offices called upon to provide contributions to both one and the other without recognition of the value produced and rather with requests that are now increasingly unrelated to awareness of the role, of the figure of the journalist itself, in an increasingly ancillary position".
SOLE 24 ORE: CONTAINMENT OF COSTS BORNE BY JOURNALISTS
Evidence of this evolution can also be found in the "contraction in direct costs of 3% (1.2 million)" for which it was "the cost of labour" that took the lion's share "decreased even more clearly, both in percentage , almost 9%, both in absolute value (-3.7 million)”. A positive result, that of cost containment, but achieved through the application to all employees and "journalists in particular of all available shock absorbers, from layoffs to early retirement". A trend that comes from the last ten years. In this period of time the group has seen a reduction in "the newspaper's staff of journalists" by almost 25%, going from 230 to 177. The problems do not only concern the number of journalists, who have difficulty coping with workloads, but the income disparities between colleagues "where for the same tasks the contractual framework is often different", is written in the text of the committee's speech editorial meeting held during the shareholders' meeting.
GROUP MANAGEMENT REMUNERATIONS RISE
The editorial committee of the Sole 24 Ore underline that, in the face of a containment of labor costs to the detriment of journalistic work which has determined the "decrease of almost three thousand euros in the average salary of the Sole 24 Ore employee", the remuneration "both of the CEO, of the first row of managers, and of the board of directors". The Report on the remuneration policy and the compensation paid highlights that 599,242 euros were paid to AS Cartia d'Asero Mirja (in the photo) in 2023, in 2022 they were 379,979, to vice-president Claudia Parzani 49,205 euros in 2023, in 2022 there were 27,288. The total compensation of the Board of Directors in 2023 reached 966,858 euros, in 2022 it was 828,142 and in 2021 743,062 euros.
THE CASE OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE DAILY NEWSPAPER AND THE SOLE 24 ORE WEBSITE
The absence of strategy in the development of the information area is confirmed by the numbers. “Circulation indicates a decrease both on the paper side, -6%, and on the digital side, -2 percent – we read in the CoR press release -. In contradiction to every asserted digital first desire, the decrease in unique browsers on the site continues, -10 percent". In particular, journalists point out the difficulty of making the work of "a more distinctly digital system" compatible with "a newspaper that must come out every day" and a work organization "that remains paper-oriented". Journalists find an example of the organizational difficulties in managing the Trento Economics Festival.
EDITOR'S NON-RESPONSES
The recriminations of the Il Sole 24 Ore journalists stimulated the publisher's response who, recalling "the contraction of the publishing market and the elements of uncertainty and instability that characterize the current geopolitical and macroeconomic framework" underlines "the return to profit in 2022 ” after 14 years and confirms it in 2023. The publisher, while recognizing that the good results were achieved “primarily” thanks to the “people and management who guided them towards the achievement of challenging objectives”, does not, in fact, respond , to questions from journalists.
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Extract from the report on the remuneration policies of the Sole 24 ore group:
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/perche-i-giornalisti-del-sole-bacchettano-i-vertici-del-gruppo-sole-24-ore/ on Fri, 03 May 2024 06:40:15 +0000.