RAI Staff Strike Over Olympic Ceremony Errors, Demand Director's Resignation

RAI sports staff have gone on strike, protesting errors made during the opening ceremony of the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. Journalists are demanding the resignation of their director, Paolo Petrecca.

According to Corriere della Sera, the journalists challenged the quality of the television broadcast, during which Paolo Petrecca allegedly made significant errors, such as greeting the audience from the "Stadio Olimpico in Rome" while at San Siro in Milan, confusing the President of the International Olympic Committee, Kirsty Coventry, with the daughter of Italian President Sergio Mattarella, and failing to recognize athletes.

RAI journalists expressed their displeasure that the director and presenter did not show close-ups of and did not mention the singer Ghali, who performed an anti-war poem by Gianni Rodari.

Paolo Petrecca does not intend to resign immediately but will not be in charge of the television broadcast of the closing ceremony of the Games. Relations between journalists and their director have been strained for some time, following the assignment of important missions to external partners.

Initially, the broadcast of the opening ceremony had been assigned to Auro Bulbarelli, who was replaced shortly before the start of the Games because he revealed that Mattarella would make a surprise appearance.