Articole

NY Times

National News Briefs; Missouri Sues

Benetton Over Death Row Ads
Published: February 11, 2000

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo., Feb. 10 Missouri's attorney general has accused the Italian
clothing maker Benetton of fraudulent misrepresentation in a lawsuit over the use of four
death row inmates in an advertising campaign.
Attorney General Jeremiah W. Nixon said on Wednesday that the company had told
officials that interviews with inmates were intended for a Newsweek magazine article.
''Instead, we find out that the project is a part of a Benetton advertising campaign,'' Mr.
Nixon said.
Benetton's campaign features photographs and interviews with more than two dozen
death row inmates and is intended to raise doubts about the use of the death penalty.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/11/us/national-news-briefs-missouri-sues-benettonover-death-row-ads.html

Sears Cites Ads in Halting Benetton Sales

Published: February 18, 2000

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill., Feb. 17 Sears, Roebuck & Company said it would stop
sales of Benetton USA apparel and remove the products from its stores.
Benetton, through its United Colors of Benetton stores, recently introduced an advertising
campaign called ''We, on Death Row'' that featured interviews with convicted killers.
Sears said Wednesday that it objected strongly to the advertising as soon as it became
aware of the campaign, and it began reviewing its legal options regarding its contract
with Benetton.

A company spokesman for Benetton, Federico Sartor, said Sears was within its rights and
that Benetton, based in Milan, would not take any action against it.
''We understand their position, and we are sympathetic with them. They are doing what
they think they have to,'' he said.
He declined to comment on any financial damage that could be caused to Benetton from
the loss of sales.
Sears shares fell $1.875, to $27.8125 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Earlier this week, Benetton defended the campaign, insisting that its aim was to foster
debate, not to increase sales.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/18/business/sears-cites-ads-in-halting-benettonsales.html

THE WORLD: Moda Italiana; Getting

Creative About the News
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
Published: February 20, 2000

ROME TO illustrate an article about a recent conference on breast cancer prevention,

Il Messaggero, the daily newspaper, splashed across its front page a picture of a sultry
nude starlet, Sabrina Ferilli, reclining on a hammock, touching her breast and wearing a
come-hither look that does not seem directed at an oncologist.
The color photograph, taken from one of Italy's best-selling nude calendars, did not
offend many readers, not even Dr. Aurelio Picciocchi, chief of surgery at the Catholic
Hospital of the Sacred Heart in Rome, and a speaker at the conference. ''Oh, that's just
journalism,'' he said cheerfully. ''But I can assure that, alas, no nude starlets attended the
conference. That I would have noticed.''
European countries generally are more relaxed about nudity than the United States,
particularly nudity in newspapers and advertising. While English and German
newspapers tidily tend to restrict their naked starlets to the entertainment pages, however,
their Italian counterparts regularly blend nudity or startling graphics into reporting,
blurring the line between soft porn and hard news.

Blurring distinctions is an Italian art form, after all, even literally. ''It was Leonardo da
Vinci who invented the painting technique of sfumato, smudging the edges of a line for
greater effect,'' said Paolo Fabbri, a professor of semiotics at the University of Bologna.
That ethical -- and perhaps aesthetic -- dexterity may help explain the Italian
reaction to Benetton's notorious Death Row ad campaign. Many admired the shock
value of the ads that have become the trademark of the fashion retailer, but few
seemed concerned that the photographer Oliviero Toscani and his colleagues may
have misrepresented themselves as journalists to the prison authorities and death
row inmates they photographed.
''I found the ads very strong and courageous,'' Paolo Graldi, editor in chief of Il
Messaggero, said. When asked about the ethics of the campaign, he replied, ''Well, I
am not familiar with the deontology of the professional guidelines that were
followed.''
Perhaps not surprisingly, Mr. Graldi saw nothing questionable in using a nude pinup to
report on breast cancer awareness. ''The picture is both reassuring and suggestive,'' he
explained. ''It shows women that they should not be afraid to touch their breasts. Breasts
are beautiful, after all.''
Italian newspapers and magazines routinely feature naked women, and the
newsmagazine, Panorama, broke new ground in 1997 when it illustrated a story on
privacy with a nude cover photograph of the former Fiat chairman Gianni Agnelli, now
78, diving into the sea from his yacht. But nudity isn't the only thing that sells
newspapers in Italy. So do movies. Just as articles on bank robberies often feature a
spaghetti-western still of Clint Eastwood, reports on child prostitution are almost always
accompanied by a still of Jodie Foster in ''Taxi Driver.'' Adult prostitution is illustrated
with shots from ''Pretty Woman.'' A recent Il Messaggero article on research on tarblocking filters in cigarettes was printed alongside the image of Sharon Stone in ''Basic
Instinct,'' lighting a cigarette in the film's famous interrogation scene.
Science and medicine tend to inspire the most imaginative graphics. A report on Dr.
Severino Antinori, a fertility specialist who has been conducting experiments using
mouse sperm to combat male infertility, was illustrated with a drawing of the cartoon
mouse Topo Gigio.
Mr. Fabbri noted that for centuries Italian reality, with its cozy accommodations between
church, state, politics, business and even organized crime has itself presented a blurry
picture to the world. For example, in his 1994 election campaign, former Prime Minister
Silvio Berlusconi, a center-right politician and a media tycoon, flooded his own airwaves
with political ads and also made many appearances on his networks' most popular variety
shows, which only his opponents viewed as an unfair advantage.
THIS month, the center-left government of Massimo D'Alema passed a law strictly
limiting the use of political ads on television, and introducing equal-time rules that

infuriated Mr. Berlusconi, who has never conceded that owning the three largest private
television networks conflicted with his political duties.
Whether fact and fiction can be legislated back into their proper domains in Italy remains
to be seen, but Mr. Fabbri warned that the smudging of distinctions between reality, art,
journalism and advertising was not a cultural throwback but a sign of things to come.
''Unfortunately, this phenomenon is very postmodern,'' he said. ''The degeneration of
values and modes of communication lie in the future of all societies and not just Italy.''
In any case, he said he believed that Mr. Toscani's effort to blend commerce and
political statement has so far backfired. ''He is a victim of his own confusions,'' he
said. ''He is pretending to do journalism, but people read it as fiction. When they see
these beautifully lit, colored images, most people don't even realize they are seeing
real faces of death row inmates, or it has no importance -- they see it as another
skillful publicity campaign, a movie poster, not reality.''
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/20/weekinreview/the-world-moda-italiana-gettingcreative-about-the-news.html

Europeans Deplore Executions in the U.S.

By SUZANNE DALEY
Published: February 26, 2000

PARIS, Feb. 25 An average person in France could not help but be familiar with the
case of Betty Lou Beets, the Texas woman who was executed on Thursday for killing her
fifth husband. Her story, with particular attention to her assertion that she was abused by
her father and husbands, has been on the front page of many newspapers here.
The French also know about Odell Barnes, also of Texas, who is scheduled to be
executed March 1, and who has been the subject of several articles by journalists and
editorial writers here contemplating whether he is innocent. A few months ago, thousands
of Parisians took to the streets in support of another American inmate: Mumia Abu Jamal,
a former Black Panther convicted of murder.
The United States may have become accustomed to the revival of the death penalty,
but much of Western Europe is appalled by it. While executions get little notice in
American newspapers anymore, the United States' willingness to put prisoners to
death is often scrutinized here.

In fact, there is so much political mileage to be gotten from criticizing the executions that
a candidate for Paris mayor recently went all the way to Texas to meet with Mr. Barnes.
Many Europeans find it a contradiction that the United States claims to be a leader
in protecting human rights when it executed more than 75 people last year. Since the
1976 Supreme Court ruling that allowed the reinstitution of executions, 38 states
have adopted a death penalty.
To many French citizens, deploring the rise in executions in the United States is no
different from taking a stand against Serbian attacks on Kosovo or the Russian
bombardment of Chechnya. All European Union countries either ban the death
penalty or long ago placed a moratorium on its use.
''For us, what the Americans are doing is completely incomprehensible, that such an
advanced country can be involved in such an act of barbarism,'' said Henry Leclerc,
the president of the Human Rights League in Paris. ''No European country does
this. No advanced country does this. America is doing it along with countries like
China and Russia and other countries that have terrible human rights records. To
us, it looks the same as if the Americans were endorsing torture or slavery.''
France gave up the guillotine in 1981, after long and heated debate, even though
polls showed that the majority of the French still favored executions. But the
numbers have changed significantly since then. A recent poll indicated that only 46
percent still favored the death penalty.
France's neighbors feel much the same. Last year, the European Union announced that it
would submit a resolution to the United Nations Human Rights Commission calling for
an end to the death penalty. The move was seen as a criticism of the United States, though
it was not mentioned by name.
In Italy, sentiment against the death penalty runs particularly strong. More than
two million people have signed a petition calling for the death penalty to be
abolished worldwide. The Colosseum is illuminated in gold whenever a death
sentence is commuted anywhere around the world.
One of Italy's leading clothes manufacturers, United Benetton, has been running an
ad campaign with photographs of American inmates on death row in seven states.
The ''We, on death row'' ads have caused a uproar in the United States. Sears,
Roebuck & Company says it will stop sales of Benetton USA apparel, and Missouri
officials have sued the company, saying those who photographed the inmates
misrepresented what they were doing.
Some French rights activists believe that Mr. Barnes may have been framed for the
murder of a friend. Jack Lang, who on Thursday declared his candidacy for Paris mayor,
made news recently when he traveled to Texas to see Mr. Barnes.

Patrick Baudouin, the president of the International League of Human Rights,

pointed out that France also takes other countries to task for sentencing prisoners to
death. But he said the outrage reserved for America was special.
''We think of America as being in our camp -- a democracy that defends liberty and
human rights,'' he said. ''Of the countries we consider in our camp, it is the only one
that goes on with the death penalty.''
He says he is well aware that Americans are not listening to European opinion on
the matter.
''We know that when we have a press conference here, it does not do a lot,'' Mr.
Baudouin said. ''But 15 years ago, no one would have guessed the Berlin Wall was
coming down. You keep pressing ahead. We are in an age of globalization, and
sometimes our American friends have a lesson to teach us, and maybe sometime we
have a lesson to teach them.''
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/26/world/europeans-deplore-executions-in-the-us.html

Media Talk; Benetton Ads Offer Tour of

Death Row
By STUART ELLIOTT
Published: December 27, 1999

During the 1990's, the Benetton Group S.p.A. became notorious for politically
provocative advertising. The tactic even gained a name, shockvertising, to describe the
Italian company's use of contentious images to sell its United Colors of Benetton apparel
around the world: an AIDS patient on his deathbed, two horses procreating, an actor and
an actress dressed as a priest and a nun kissing, victims of genocide and Mafia vendettas.
For the new decade, Benetton is at it again. Oliviero Toscani, Benetton's creative director
and editorial director of Colors, the Benetton magazine, is producing a 96-page brochure
of photographs of inmates on death row in prisons in seven states. The images are
accompanied by interviews conducted by Ken Shulman, a journalist based in Cambridge,
Mass.; the inmates are identified by name and the dates they have been sentenced to die.
''In Europe, we hate the death penalty,'' Mr. Toscani said. ''I'm pretty sure that one day it
won't exist any more.''

The brochure is to be distributed in 13 languages in 60 countries, making its first

appearance in the United States in the form of consecutive advertising pages in the
February issue of Talk magazine.
''It's an intensely controversial subject, a thought-provoking campaign that's perfect for
us,'' said Ronald A. Galotti, president and publisher of Talk magazine in New York. The
magazine is a joint venture of the Hearst Corporation and the Miramax Film Corporation,
part of the Walt Disney Company.
It is not surprising that Talk is running the ads, because Mr. Toscani, in addition to his
duties at Benetton and Colors, has been hired by Talk as creative director to retool the
magazine's look.
There was no quid pro quo, Mr. Galotti said, adding that ''his people back in Italy made
the decision'' to spend the amount in ''seven figures'' to buy the advertising space.
''If it were only that easy'' to sell ad pages, Mr. Galotti said, laughing. ''Anybody who
could come with 100 ad pages, we'd hire.''
Photo: Benetton's latest campaign interviews prisoners condemned to die.