The word releases energy, the breaking latest news passion, effort and modernity. Piero Dardanello, born in Mondovì (Cuneo) in 1935 and died twenty years ago, was a revolutionary journalist: since 2004 the Association that bears his name has established the journalistic prize, has created projects and competitions in schools. Now, to photograph 45 years of work from the «Gazzetta di Mondovì» to «Tuttosport», passing through «Gazzetta dello Sport», «Giorno», «Corriere d’Informazione», «Contro», «L’Occhio», there is the book Piero’s world edited by Roberto Beccantini and Fabio Monti, with dozens of his articles and the testimonies of colleagues, raised in furious phone calls, impossible requests, harshness and sincerity.
A total reporter
Beccantini writes: “Everyone will be able to touch the technique, the personality, that way of being a journalist who comes from the pavement, a news hunter, an explorer of talents, neither saint nor benefactor, with the harsh character of his land, but also, and above all, with the flashes of seriousness and simplicity that have characterized its mission ». Monti adds: “These pages can tell the profile of a total journalist, capable of doing everything and good at everything, futuristic in some of his interpretations, often ahead of his time, but always rigorous, demanding, attentive to form, master of the situation, enemy of sloppiness ».
The collection of articles
Then, the articles by Dardanello, who was director of “Tuttosport” from September ’82 to January ’94, and his titles, so concise and contemporary, and his first pages drawn with the esprit that gives words the immediacy of Images. There is the whole history of football from the 60s to the mid-90s. Italy returns from Mexico 70 and is almost stoned, the tears of Valcareggi after the disasters of Germany 74, the magician Platini and Juventus boss, the most words powerful in the most tragic night, at Heysel: “it is a brutal, bestial, cruel war”, with fans asking journalists to be able to use the telephone to reassure everyone at home. But, in addition to goals and athletes, the newspaper creature palpitates, which – writes Dardanello in his first editorial as editor of “Tuttosport” – “I will above all try to love”, a verb now so obsolete in this football that declines overshadowed by too much money and little love .
Piero’s world. Words, titles and outbursts of a great journalist: Piero Dardanello
The care of Roberto Beccantini e Fabio Monti
Bradipolibri, pp. 244, € 15