Sinisa Mihajlovic at a press conference. He did not nominate Zazzaroni but spoke of a journalist who did not respect him. Photo GIORGIO BENVENUTI / ANSA
BOLOGNA – In the press conference in which Sinisa Mihajlovic moved Italy revealing to be sick with leukemia, the Serbian coach also expressed his disappointment for "Journalists who did not respect my privacy and preferred to sell a hundred more copies than that preserve a friendship that has been going on for over 20 years … ".
Mihajlovic did not name Ivan Zazzaroni but the editor of Corriere dello Sport came out in the open with an editorial entitled "I did the journalist not my friend but today I wouldn't do it" where he explains his reasons. We report it in full below.
Zazzaroni, his editorial on Mihajlovic: "I made the journalist not the friend but today I wouldn't do it again".
"I didn't miss a single word from Sinisa's press conference, trying to measure every sentence of his, every expression in his gaze, his gestures, his jokes, as if hypnotized by his eyes. Transparency. "But it's not fear," he reassured us. He froze me, the day before I had shouted all my anger in the newsroom when I was told around 5pm that my twenty-year-old friend was suffering from leukemia and that many knew.
The anguish of those who suffer must always prevail, and then I repent for the first time of having made the journalist and not the friend of twenty, the friend who for the whole afternoon of Friday had had to answer dozens of other friends and fans, and that he had tried several times on the phone for his twenty-year-old friend, and then Arianna, his wife, and Sabatini, and Mancini, and Dr. Nanni, the only one able to provide me with certainties and some reassurance. "Let him tell you", Sabatini's advice. But he, Sinisa, did not respond.
"Why did you leave the retreat?" "But is it true that he did clinical investigations?" "What's wrong?" "Is it serious?" "Will he come back to train?" "Do you know something?" One question after another, a torment, calls, messages.
The choice.
Yes, I was a journalist and not a friend who would have to wait another half a day to let Sinisa himself tell. After listening to his words and seeing his face, having recognized his courage, I realized that I would have to publicly apologize to him: I should have been a friend, "Sini", as in the previous twenty years, not the a journalist who also advised her not to write a line on the extent of the disease. The last truth. That scary word. I had to make a choice, in front of your crying, your pain, I know I made the wrong one.
A reflection accompanies me from yesterday: we discuss – uselessly, often it is an exercise in hypocrisy – of false news, fake news, and we get to be scandalized by real news. Privacy? Perhaps only the social media have the right to ignore it, given that those interested use it to confess publicly? If one does not follow Facebook or Instagram or Twitter and simply read a newspaper, should he not know?
I did not think yesterday and I do not think today that I have done any harm to Sinisa: I just ventured the pain of news that I never wanted to receive by adding an affectionate encouragement.
I sent him a message, the content does not reveal it: it only matters that he recovers well and quickly, everything else concerns my conscience. Better a remorse confessed than a stain in the heart ".
The Zazzaroni article : "Mihajlovic? I made the journalist not the friend but today I wouldn't do it again ” seems to be the first on daily Blitz .
Source: Blitz Quotidiano