[7] In April 2020, the paper was acquired by the GEDI Gruppo Editoriale of John Elkann and the Agnelli family, who is also the founder and owner of La Stampa.

The publisher Carlo Caracciolo and Mondadori had invested 2.3 billion lire (half each) and a break-even point was calculated at 150,000 copies.

[22] Scalfari invited a few trusted colleagues like Gianni Rocca, then Giorgio Bocca, Sandro Viola [it], Mario Pirani, Miriam Mafai, Barbara Spinelli, Natalia Aspesi, and Giuseppe Turani [it].

During the 55 days of the Aldo Moro kidnapping, la Repubblica backed the policy of hardline non-negotiation while reporting on the pro-negotiation approach led by Bettino Craxi of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI).

[citation needed] In 1981, Corriere della Sera was hit by a scandal when chief editor Franco Di Bella was outed as a member of the secret masonic lodge Propaganda Due (P2).

This allowed la Repubblica to win extra readers and recruit a number of prestigious commentators, such as Enzo Biagi and Alberto Ronchey from Corriere della Sera.

The launch was backed by a successful advertising campaign featuring a young university student seen purchasing la Repubblica.

Ten years later, the same student was pictured as an adult; he is holding the same newspaper but in the meantime he worked his way up to an important managerial position in a large company.

la Repubblica continued the game of catch up with Corriere della Sera, and in December 1986 managed to overtake their rivals.

[citation needed] In 1987, la Repubblica launched a prize competition called Portfolio, a type of stock market-based lottery.

In 1991, after more than two years of legal and financial battles, the struggle was ended by the entrepreneur Giuseppe Ciarrapico on behalf of the prime minister of the time, Giulio Andreotti, who persuaded De Benedetti and Berlusconi to split the Grande Mondadori.

Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso at first sued Sparagna for plagiarism but lost when the court acknowledged Lunedì di Repubblica as an original masthead.

[citation needed] In May 1996, after twenty years, Eugenio Scalfari resigned as editor-in-chief but remained an important contributor to the newspaper.

The project was coordinated by Vittorio Zambardino, Gualtiero Pierce, and Ernesto Assante, with technical direction by Alessandro Canepa.

[27] In May 2007, the paper's website was listed 11th among the top 30 brands of the month in Italy, with almost 5 million unique visitors, and being the first daily newspaper ahead of Corriere della Sera;[28] during the same month, the paper had sold about 566,000 copies compared to the circa 594,000 copies of Corriere della Sera.

[32] On 20 November 2007, the newspaper revealed wiretapping transcripts between certain RAI and Mediaset directors, aimed at modifying some parts of the TV scheduling of 2005 regarding the death of Pope John Paul II and the 2005 Italian regional elections.

[33] In August 2009, Berlusconi sued the newspaper, after it published ten questions addressed to him, which he refused to answer on the grounds that they were "rhetorical, defamatory, and discrediting".

Asking for €1 million in damages, the lawsuit also cited a 6 August 2009 article in which the paper described him as blackmailable, and was not limited to Italy, as his lawyer sued British, French, and Spanish outlets for publishing news about his personal life.

Mauro, one of the authors of the contested articles, commented: "Unable to answer, except with a lie, Silvio Berlusconi has decided to bring the ten questions of [la] Repubblica to court, thus covering up – at least in Italy – the public shame of private behavior which is at the centre of an international scandal and persecutes him politically.

The sentence concluded that "in a democratic country it is the right and duty of the press to ask those who hold political and government offices to account and explain their behavior" so that citizens can judge the public figure "not only on the carried out, but also with reference to its ethical heritage and the consistency of its behaviour".

[35] Following the purchase of GEDI group by John Elkann, Carlo Verdelli [it] was removed from his post as editor and replaced by Maurizio Molinari in April 2020.

[36] The appointment of Molinari and the role of Elkann were criticized, and led to several journalists to resign,[10] and the paper's former editor Carlo De Benedetti to found the Domani newspaper.

[6] The paper also used to be known for its critical stand vis-à-vis the Catholic Church,[45] a position that changed after the onset of the papacy of Pope Francis,[46][47][48] who remembered Scalfari upon his death as a "laical friend".

[3] Compared to one of its competitors, Corriere della Sera, a representative of the moderate bourgeoisie, la Repubblica maintains a centre-left, progressive orientation.

Scalfari warned the paper not to move away from its liberal-socialist positions, which he described thusly: "I have always believed in a liberal socialism, capable of uniting equality and reformism ... at the forefront in guiding the country and Europe in this direction.

This English-language supplement features articles selected from The New York Times and can be downloaded free of charge from la Repubblica's website.