Il Foglio

Description

The newspaper takes its name from its broadsheet format wrapped around several pages of inserts; pages of the insert are indicated with Roman numerals, while those of the newspaper are printed with Arabic numerals. Since the 2010s, there have been occasional editions with an additional sheet featuring cartoons on the front and back and featured articles or advertisements on the inside pages. Saturday editions carry the words "Weekend Edition" next to the date; these issues can reach 16 pages, also containing regular columns and cultural reviews.

The Monday edition, mostly prepared several days prior, has a different layout and the articles are printed in a larger font. This issue contains mostly opinions and comment. An essay appears on the front page, which often continues inside the main sheet; page 3 is titled Un Foglio internazionale ("An international Paper") and contains reports from the foreign press.

History

Il Foglio was founded in Milan in 1996 by Ferrara after he left as editor of the magazine Panorama. The paper is headquartered in Rome.{{cite web|title=Communicating Europe: Italy Manual

Political leanings

The newspaper has tended to express a conservative line in politics and a liberal one in economics. Anglo-American conservatism can roughly be considered its closest political position. It features editorials inspired by American newspapers, especially The Wall Street Journal.

A significant part of its journalists are members or were members of the Radical Party. This newspaper also hosts several articles from left-leaning and independent columnists. In 2004, classed it as an activist daily (quotidiano-attivista), alongside Libero on the political right and l'Unità on the political left, in contrast to the institution daily (quotidiano-istituzione), such as Corriere della Sera and La Stampa, and the agenda daily (quotidiano-agenda), such as la Repubblica.

Artificial intelligence

In March 2025, it reported it had created the world’s first newspaper issue generated entirely using AI, with journalists limited to asking questions of a chatbot and reading the answers before inserting them.

Ownership

Since 2016, the paper has been owned by Sorgente Group, a group operating in the field of real estate investments and finance and chaired by Valter Mainetti.

Previously, in April 2006, Ferrara gave the following breakdown of ownership:

• PBF S.r.l.—38%
• (Sardinian builder and owner of the largest daily newspaper of Sardinia, L'Unione Sarda, and of some regional television broadcasting companies, such as Videolina and )—20% to 25%
• Denis Verdini (former national coordinator of The People of Freedom)—15%
• Ferrara himself—10%
• —10%

References

References

1. "Foglio, Il nell'Enciclopedia Treccani".
2. Smoltczyk, Alexander. (28 November 2005). "The Halls of Power in Italy: Dining with Berlusconi's Brain". Der Spiegel.
3. Saitta, Eugénie. (April 2006). "The Transformations of Traditional Mass Media Involvement in the Political and Electoral Process". European Consortium for Political Research.
4. Giuffrida, Angela. (2025-03-18). "Italian newspaper says it has published world's first AI-generated edition". The Guardian.
5. "Tutte le balle di Trump nell'ultimo mese, caso per caso".
6. (2016-12-16). "A Sorgente il 30% della Gazzetta. Mainetti: 'Una nuova avventura'". Corriere della Sera.