He was also the editor of important news magazines: Oggi (1939–1941), L'Europeo (1945–54), L'Espresso (1955–63), and Il Mondo (1969–72).

L'Espresso was characterized from the beginning by an aggressive investigative journalism strongly focussed on corruption and clientelism by the Christian Democrat party.

[7] In 1969 Benedetti refounded the weekly newsmagazine Il Mondo, founded by his old friend Mario Pannunzio in 1949, but discontinued in 1966.

As a novelist, Benedetti’s narrative style is characterized by a realistic and immediate language often comparerd with Italian neorealist cinema, in particular in his last book of fiction, Rosso al vento (Red in the Wind), describing life in Italy during World War II.

His meticulous attention to everyday reality is manifest in all his novels from I misteri della città (The Mysterious of the City) (1941) to Gli occhi (Eyes) (1970).