Furio Colombo
{{Short description|Italian journalist and politician (1931–2025)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2025}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name = Furio Colombo
| image = Furio Colombo deputato.jpg
| caption = Colombo in 1996
| order = Member of the Chamber of Deputies
| term_start = 29 April 2008
| term_end = 14 March 2013
| constituency = Piedmont
| term_start2 = 9 May 1996
| term_end2 = 29 May 2001
| constituency2 = Turin
| order3 = Member of the Senate of the Republic
| term_start3 = 28 April 2006
| term_end3 = 28 April 2008
| constituency3 = Lombardy
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1931|1|1}}
| birth_place = Châtillon, Italy
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|2025|1|14|1931|1|1}}
| death_place = Rome, Italy
| party = PDS (1991–1998)
DS (1998–2007)
PD (2007–2013)
NRPTT (2015–2025)
| nationality = Italian
| alma_mater = University of Turin
| occupation = Journalist, politician, academic
}}
Furio Colombo (1 January 1931 – 14 January 2025) was an Italian journalist and politician. He started his career in the mid-1950s, working with RAI. In the late 1980s, after moving to New York he worked as a correspondent for La Stampa and La Repubblica. He wrote for various newspapers and taught at the University of Bologna, Columbia University and the University of California, Berkeley, at different phases of his life, and served as the director of the Italian Cultural Institute in New York City.
He then served as the editor-in-chief of L'Unità, an Italian leftist newspaper, before leaving due to criticism he faced for his excessive independence from the party line. He later cofounded and became a columnist for Il Fatto Quotidiano, from which he resigned during the Russian invasion of Ukraine because he said the paper had taken a pro-Russian stance and in protest of the hiring of Alessandro Orsini. He died on 14 January 2025.
Life and career
= Journalistic and academic career =
Colombo was born in Châtillon, Aosta Valley, into a Jewish family. In the mid-1950s, he started working for the Italian national broadcasting corporation RAI, where he collaborated on the creation of cultural radio and television programs, documentaries and journalistic reportage. In the early 1970s, Colombo taught "Theory and Techniques of Media" and "Radio and Television Language" in the newly founded Department of Art, Music and Entertainment at the University of Bologna.{{cite web|url=https://www.bibliotecasalaborsa.it/cronologia/bologna/1971/555|title=Cronologia di Bologna|work=BibliotecaSalaborsa.it|access-date=18 October 2018|archive-date=16 July 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180716170042/https://www.bibliotecasalaborsa.it/cronologia/bologna/1971/555|url-status=dead}}
In the late 1980s, Colombo moved to New York, where he worked as correspondent from the United States for La Stampa and La Repubblica, of which he has been a columnist. He wrote for The New York Times and the New York Review of Books, and taught journalism at the Columbia University and the University of California, Berkeley.{{cite web|url=http://www.media2000.it/biografia-furio-colombo/|title=Biografia Furio Colombo|work=Media2000.it|date=23 October 2013 |access-date=18 October 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180922155811/http://www.media2000.it/biografia-furio-colombo/|archive-date=22 September 2018}} From 1991 to 1994, he was the director of the Italian Cultural Institute in New York City.{{cite web|url=https://iicnewyork.esteri.it/iic_newyork/it/istituto/chi_siamo/storia|title=Storia dell'Istituto Italiano di Cultura di New York|work=IICNewYork.Esteri.it|access-date=18 October 2018}}
From 2001 to 2005, Colombo was the editor-in-chief of the left-wing newspaper L'Unità. According to Marco Travaglio, Colombo left the paper after four years due to the objections by leading personalities from the Democrats of the Left (DS) party to what they saw as his excessive autonomy from the party line.{{cite web|url=https://www.corriere.it/politica/08_agosto_25/travaglio_polemica_unita_d7fb7b0c-7285-11dd-b748-00144f02aabc.shtml|title=Travaglio: "Non ho capito il motivo del cambio di direttore dell'Unità"|work=Corriere della Sera|date=25 August 2008|access-date=18 October 2018}}
From 2006 to 2022, Colombo was a columnist for Il Fatto Quotidiano,{{cite web|url=https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/blog/fcolombo/|title=Furio Colombo's Blog|work=Il Fatto Quotidiano|access-date=18 October 2018}} which he co-founded. Following the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Colombo said the paper had taken a pro-Russian stance, and resigned from the paper due to its hiring of {{ill|Alessandro Orsini (sociologist)|lt=Alessandro Orsini|it|Alessandro Orsini}}. He was also critical of the theories of {{ill|Massimo Fini|it|Massimo Fini}}, a fellow columnist, on the German occupation of Italy during World War II.{{Cite web |last=D'Arcais |first=Paolo Flores |date=17 May 2022 |title=Furio Colombo: "Ecco perché ho lasciato Il Fatto Quotidiano" |url=https://www.micromega.net/furio-colombo-lascia-fatto-quotidiano/ |access-date=22 June 2023 |website=MicroMega |language=it}}{{Cite web | url = https://www.repubblica.it/commenti/2022/05/20/news/putin_il_lupo_e_i_porcellini-350299169/ | title = Putin il lupo e i porcellini | author = Furio Colombo | website = La Repubblica | date = 19 May 2022 | language = it | access-date = 10 September 2022 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220622141907/https://www.repubblica.it/commenti/2022/05/20/news/putin_il_lupo_e_i_porcellini-350299169/ | archive-date = 22 June 2022 | url-status = dead }}
= Political career =
Colombo was elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies in 1996 with the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS) and in 2008 with the Democratic Party (PD), and to the Italian Senate in 2006 with the DS. After the 2008 Italian general election, Colombo became a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Chamber of Deputies. From 2011, with the death of Mirko Tremaglia, until the end of the legislature in 2013, Colombo was the oldest Deputy of the 16th Legislature. On 16 July 2007, with an article published on L'Unità, Colombo announced his candidacy for the PD secretariat, focusing on strong criticism of Silvio Berlusconi. By 1 August 2007, he gave up his candidacy, just as Antonio Di Pietro and Marco Pannella did, due to excessively bureaucratic rules that made it difficult to advance his candidacy.{{cite web|url=http://www.repubblica.it/2007/07/sezioni/politica/partito-democratico-7/esclusi-parlano/esclusi-parlano.html|title=Furio Colombo, rinuncia con polemica. Di Pietro: "Temevano un vero concorrente"|work=La Repubblica|date=31 July 2007|access-date=18 October 2018}} On 2 May 2015, on occasion of Pannella's 85th birthday, Colombo joined the Transnational Radical Party (NRPTT).{{cite web|url=http://www.radioradicale.it/scheda/440901/intervista-a-furio-colombo-sul-compleanno-di-marco-pannella|title=Intervista a Furio Colombo sul compleanno di Marco Pannella|work=Radio Radicale|date=1 May 2015|access-date=18 October 2018}}
= Death =
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{IMDb name| 0173055}}
- Files about his parliamentary activities (in Italian): [http://leg13.camera.it/cartellecomuni/leg13/Deputati/scheda_deputato/scheda.asp?id=d00150 XIII], [http://www.senato.it/leg/15/BGT/Schede/Attsen/00004383.htm XV], [http://leg16.camera.it/29?shadow_deputato=50007&idpersona=50007 XVI] legislature.
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Colombo, Furio}}
Category:20th-century Italian Jews
Category:20th-century Italian journalists
Category:20th-century Italian male writers
Category:21st-century Italian journalists
Category:Academic staff of the University of Bologna
Category:Columbia University faculty
Category:Democratic Party (Italy) politicians
Category:Democratic Party of the Left politicians
Category:Democrats of the Left politicians
Category:Deputies of Legislature XIII of Italy
Category:Deputies of Legislature XVI of Italy
Category:Italian male journalists
Category:Italian newspaper editors
Category:Members of the Chamber of Deputies (Italy)
Category:Members of the Senate of the Republic (Italy)
Category:People from Châtillon, Aosta Valley