The journalism career of Walter Tobagi began as editor of the Zanzara, the famous newspaper of the Milanese high school Parini. After high school, he joined Avanti! of Milan but a few months later Tobagi transferred to the Catholic newspaper Avvenire. It was years of practice at the “reporter in the field” school of journalism that brought him first to the Corriere d’Informazione and finally to Corriere della Sera. Tobagi’s primary interest was in social issues, information, politics and the trade union movement. But as his major professional commitment Tobagi dedicated himself to the events of domestic terrorism in Italy. At Corriere della Sera he followed all the events relating to the period known as the “years of lead”. One of his last articles on Red Terrorists is considered among the most significant given the title: “They are not invincible samurai”.
Walter Tobagi – 33 years old, wife and two children, writer and university professor, president of the Lombard Association of Journalists – was killed at 11 in the morning of the 28th March shortly after leaving home with five pistol shots by a group of assassins including Marco Barbone and Mario Marano of the Red Brigade.
(from Remembrance Day of journalists killed by mafia and terrorism, 2008)
(Update by Raffaella Della Morte – 3 May 2020)
- The evening before being killed, Walter Tobagi had taken the floor at the Circolo della Stampa in Milan at the debate “Reporting between judicial secrecy and professional secrecy” to discuss the so-called “Isman case”, whereby the journalist of Il Messaggero Fabio Isman was sentenced to one year and six months of imprisonment for having published the minutes of the interrogations of the repentant Red Brigade member Peci obtained by the then deputy head of SISDE (the Italian domestic intelligence agency) Silvano Russomanno who was also convicted.
- Within a few months, the investigation led to the identification of Walter Tobagi’s killers. Investigations found that the terrorists had long ago identified him as a “possible target”.
- 1980 – In October 1980, Marco Barbone, 22, son of an executive of the Sansoni publishing group, controlled by Rizzoli, was arrested. Together with Paolo Morandini, son of the well-known film critic and others, he had formed shortly before the crime, a terrorist group called “Brigata XVIII March” (March16thBrigade) , “one of the many groups that would like to join the Red Brigades, but not from the servants entrance” as Giorgio Bocca wrote (“The years of Terrorism”. Curcio 1988).
- Barbone and Morandini confessed to the murder and immediately began to collaborate with the investigators, who identified the other members of the commando.
- 1983 – THE SENTENCES – On November 28th 1983 the trial of the members of the “Brigata XVIII March” (March16thBrigade)ended with the following sentences:
- Marco Barbone: leader of the group, sentenced to 8 years and nine months. Given his status as a plea bargainer he obtained bail after three years in prison. Thanks to his statements, the other perpetrators were also identified.
- Paolo Morandini: sentenced to 8 years and 9 months though he collaborated with the justice system
- Mario Marano: sentenced to 20 years and 4 months, then reduced for his collaboration, to 12 years on appeal, and subsequently to 10 with an amnesty
- Manfredi De Stefano: sentenced to 28 years and eight months, he died in prison struck by an aneurysm
- Daniele Laus: sentenced to 27 years and eight months, then reduced to sixteen years in the second instance
- Francesco Giordano: sentenced to 30 years and 8 months, reduced on appeal to 21 years.
• In via Salaino, in Milan, near the place of the murder – in 2005 – the city council of Milan installed a plaque in his memory, following the request of the Lombard Association of Journalists of which Tobagi was president and of Order of Journalists of Lombardy.
• The journalism school of the State University of Milan is named after Walter Tobagi
• On February 17th 2020, the Lombardy Order of Journalists and the Walter Tobagi Association for Journalism Training launched the competition for the Walter Tobagi Award, reserved for students of Milanese journalism schools.
• Tobagi’s name is also listed in the Journalist Memorial of the Newseum in Washington D.C. which contains the faces and names of journalists killed while doing their work.
• At the Casa del Jazz in Rome, Tobagi is remembered on the plaque affixed to the entrance listing the innocent victims of mafias and on the Memorial panel of Ossigeno per l’Informazione (Oxygen for Information).
Books by Walter Tobagi
- Walter Tobagi, Storia del movimento studentesco e dei marxisti-leninisti in Italia, Sugar editore, Milano, 1970.
- Walter Tobagi, Gli anni del manganello, Fratelli Fabbri editori, Milano, 1973.
- Walter Tobagi, La fondazione della politica salariale della CGIL, Annali della Fondazione Giacomo Feltrinelli, Milano,
- Walter Tobagi, Mario Borsa giornalista liberale, in “Problemi dell’Informazione”, luglio – settembre 1976; ripubblicato in Mario Borsa, Libertà di stampa, Scheiwiller, Milano 2005
- Walter Tobagi, Achille Grandi. I cattolici e l’unità sindacale. Scritti e discorsi, Esi, Roma, 1976.
- Walter Tobagi, La rivoluzione impossibile. L’attentato a Togliatti: violenza politica e reazione popolare, Il Saggiatore, Milano, 1978, 2009.
- Walter Tobagi, Il sindacato riformista. Alla scoperta del riformismo nella storiografia contemporanea, Sugarco edizioni, Milano, 1979.
- Walter Tobagi,Giorgio Bocca. Vita di giornalista, Laterza, Roma-Bari, 1979.
- Walter Tobagi, Che cosa contano i sindacati, Rizzoli, Milano, 1980.
- Walter Tobagi, Carlo Remeny (a cura di), Il giornale e il non-lettore. Atti del convegno del 15/17 giugno 1979 organizzato da Walter Tobagi, Sansoni editore, Firenze, 1981.
Anthologies of writings of Walter Tobagi
- Giuseppe Baiocchi e Marco Volpati (a cura di), Walter Tobagi giornalista– ALG e Provincia di Milano – Comprende una raccolta di scritti, articoli e saggi di Walter Tobagi dal 1964 al 1980
- Gianluigi Da Rold (a cura di), Walter Tobagi. Il coraggio della ragione, Sugarco, Milano, 1981
- Aldo Forbice (a cura di), Testimone scomodo. Walter Tobagi – Scritti scelti 1975-1980, Franco Angeli, Milano 1989
- Giuseppe Baiocchi e Alessandro Caporali (a cura di), Se un profeta una mattina…, Associazione Lombarda dei Giornalisti, Milano, 1990
- Giangiacomo Schiavi (a cura di), Walter Tobagi ieri e oggi. I suoi articoli riletti trent’anni dopo dalle firme del Corriere, Fondazione Corriere della Sera, Milano, 2010
Books about Walter Tobagi
- Piero V. Scorti, Il delitto paga? L’affare Tobagi, Sugarco, Milano, 1985
- Nino Aurora, Conversazioni con Walter Tobagi. Industria e società a Taranto, Piero Lacaita editore, Marduria-Bari, Roma, 1987
- Gianluigi Da Rold, …Annientate Tobagi!, Bietti, Milano, 2000.
- Renzo Magosso, Le carte di Moro, perché Tobagi. Chi portò gli scritti caldi di Aldo Moro; i nomi, i reati, i retroscena. Come e quando decisero di non salvare Walter Tobagi, Edizioni Franco Angeli 2003 (con Roberto Arlati)
- Piero V. Scorti, L’affaire Tobagi. Un «giallo politico», Montedit, Melegnano (Mi), 2003
- Ugo Finetti, Il caso Tobagi, supplemento al numero 1-2/2005 di “Critica Sociale”)
