Lilli Gruber

The Honourable
Lilli Gruber
Member of the European Parliament
for North-East Italy
In office
June 14, 2004  June 6, 2009
Majority Party of European Socialists
Personal details
Born Dietlinde Gruber
(1957-04-19) April 19, 1957
Bolzano, South Tyrol, Italy
Political party The Daisy
Spouse(s) Jacques Charmelot (m. 2012)
Alma mater University of Venice
Profession Journalist

Dietlinde "Lilli" Gruber (born 19 April 1957) is an Italian journalist and former politician.

Currently a talk show host for Italian private television channel La7, Gruber also served as Member of the European Parliament from 2004 to September 2008 with the Olive Tree left-wing coalition.

Biography

Early career and resignation from RAI

Gruber was born in Bolzano and is a German and Italian native speaker. She graduated in foreign languages and literature at the University of Venice. In 1982 Gruber started her journalism career and in 1987 became TG1's anchor, the main television news program on Rai Uno.

In 1988, she became political correspondent for RAI, covering events such as the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the war in the former Yugoslavia, the situation in the United States after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, and the Iraqi war.

In 1999 she worked with the German TV channel SWF (1988) and Pro 7 (1996).

In April 2004 Gruber resigned from her position at RAI in protest against the influence on state controlled media by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. She attacked his "unresolved conflict of interest", and considered that RAI had abandoned its tradition of pluralism in order to support the government's views. Gruber has also worked for the Italian newspaper La Stampa, for "Io Donna", TV Sorrisi e Canzoni and Anna.

Member of European Parliament

In the European Parliament elections of 2004 she ran as an independent candidate for the European Parliament under the centre-left Olive Tree ticket; her candidacy was proposed, together with Michele Santoro, after she was pushed out of Silvio Berlusconi-controlled RAI. She topped the Olive Tree votes in two electoral regions, and beat Berlusconi himself in the Central region vote. After election, she joined the Socialist Group. Gruber served in the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, and as an alternate on the Committee on Foreign Affairs and Chair of the Delegation for relations with the Gulf States, including Yemen. She resigned from her position in September 2008, months before the natural completion of her mandate, to return to her previous journalism career.

Back into national TV

After her resignation from European Parliament, in 2008 Gruber accepted an offer from private TV channel La7, where she took charge of the long-running political talk show Otto e mezzo, that she still hosts to date.

Bilderberg invitation

She was included in the guest list of Bilderberg Group 2012 edition, at Chantilly, Virginia, as Journalist/Anchorwoman, and was the only journalist allowed at the 2013 meeting in Hertfordshire, England.[1]

Education

Awards and honours

Works

References

Media offices
Preceded by
Newscaster for TG1
1987–2004
Succeeded by
Preceded by
Giuliano Ferrara
Host of Otto e mezzo
since 2008
Incumbent
Assembly seats
Preceded by
Member of the European Parliament for Italy
2004–2008
Succeeded by
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 9/24/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.