TRIESTE “He wasn’t someone trying to sweeten the pill. He was a frank man and with this frankness, he told me that I would face defeat when I decided to run for elections in 2018 ». Riccardo Illy gives credit to the director’s frankness: «I appreciated that truth about him. I have always believed that it is better to blush first than to turn pale later ».
The entrepreneur and former president of the Region recalls that Monestier «was not an easy to read character. There are people whose facial expression is enough to understand if they share the words of an interlocutor. Monestier, on the other hand, was a difficult person to grasp. He said little with expressions and it was necessary to weigh the words, which were always direct ».
Illy expresses «condolences for the family and collaborators, who had great esteem and also affection for the director. I remember him as a man of very high professionalism and intelligence, capable of grasping in a few seconds the essentials of every problem that was involved. I appreciated the journalist who was able to quickly find the unforeseen link between different facts ».
But what struck Illy most after the first meetings was the fact that «despite being a man of great value and high professionalism, Monestier did not make him weigh. He shared human relationships with a rare wit and lightness. Lightness not intended as superficiality, but as the fact of not making his role weigh and rather show great humility. Somewhere they would say that he didn’t take it. ”
The reactions of politics
The esteem of the parties: “A man of worth”
Mattia Pertoldi
Knowledge strengthened at the table: “Once for a dinner invitation, my wife asked him what he didn’t eat. She replied that he ate everything. Rossana appreciated a lot, because I, on the other hand, have some limitations that force her to do the slalom among the raw materials to be cooked ».
Then the former mayor of Trieste goes back to the professional side: «I have always liked his pluralism in handling the news, the absence of prejudices. And for local newspapers that also deal with politics it is a fundamental value. When he arrived in Trieste, his approach made me immediately appreciate the absence of preconceptions in the writing of the newspaper. At the Piccolo he was able to interpret the transition of the city, he showed himself capable of satisfying the will to change and the relaunching of aspirations, without ever having the will to dictate the rules ».
Confindustria
Benedetti: “A sharp and brilliant man”
Maurizio Cescon
According to Illy, «Monestier has put great will and commitment to revitalize Il Piccolo, at a time when the press is unfortunately facing a constant and impressive decline in sales. But Omar believed in the function of journalism and said that this was all the more true with the entry into the digital age, which requires a supplement of experience and expertise to sift through the news and avoid errors of assessment. News is not all the same: it depends on who collects it and who writes it. In this Omar was a priest of journalism ».