Santoro was born in
Salerno. A graduate in
philosophy, he made a successful debut in the Italian media as editor-in-chief on the regional newspaper
La Voce della Campania ("Voice of Campania") and collaborating with some other national newspapers and magazines like
Il Mattino, ''
L'Unità and Epoca''. Before being hired by
RAI, he had had some experience with a number of radio stations. He started his RAI career in
TG3, the
Rai 3 news division, first as a foreign correspondent, then creating and producing TV specials and weekly TV magazines, and finally working as chief culture correspondent, again for
TG3.
News shows Santoro's popularity was essentially based on being the author and anchorman for TV journalism broadcasts like
Samarcanda,
Il rosso e il nero and
Temporeale, all strongly
left-wing oriented, the broadcasts took place during a period of political turmoil in Italy, such as
Mani pulite. These often involved
debates with
politicians, along with ground-breaking reports and questions from the audience. Santoro's shows were seen as places where the Italian people confronted their politicians, often perceived to be corrupt or inept. His shows have always been criticized for the leftism and lack of impartiality like in the last years with attacks against Berlusconi and other right wing Italian MPs. Santoro left RAI in 1996, because of disagreements with the public television's direction, and briefly worked in
Silvio Berlusconi's networks; he left Mediaset because of Berlusconi's continuing political role that he felt to be in conflict with his influence as the country's main media entrepreneur. After his return, he led two shows,
Circus, on
Rai 1, and
Sciuscià, on
Rai 2. The latter was often made up of a series of reportages, narrated in movie style. In recent years he has been continually accused of partisanship by the
right-wing coalition
House of Freedoms led by Berlusconi, whose family holding company controls
Mediaset, who installed a new board in the state-owned RAI after their electoral victory in the
2001 Italian general election.
Sciuscià remained on the air until May 2002.
Attacks from Berlusconi The new RAI board installed by the centre-right government decided not to renew Santoro's
contract. This followed a declaration by Silvio Berlusconi, then
prime minister of Italy, at a
press conference in
Sofia,
Bulgaria, where he stated: "Santoro,
Biagi and
Luttazzi used the public TV, paid by all, in a manner which is criminal. I believe it to be a specific duty of the new RAI board not to allow this to happen again." Soon after, neither Santoro nor the two others obtained any more work for RAI, and working for Berlusconi's own TV networks (the other half of the TV system) was obviously unviable. A legal dispute has been ongoing, since Santoro contested a violation of his contract by RAI. He was supported by a court decision that should have forced RAI to give him the direction of a news magazine, but in the end Santoro was omitted. == European Parliament candidate ==