A chat with Matteo Bordone on the art of doing serious journalism without taking yourself too seriously.
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Say Hello to Matteo Bordone
Matteo Bordone started very young, at 27, hosting a daily program on Radio 2 called Dispenser. Then he went on to co-host Condor with Luca Sofri, also on Radio 2, and had various television experiences: commentator on Le invasioni barbariche with Daria Bignardi, sidekick to Geppi Cucciari on G Day, host of Extrafactor within X Factor, and so on. Finally, he landed at the online newspaper Il Post, where he happily resides today and for which he has produced several podcasts, the main one being Tienimi Bordone, a daily appointment that has now reached over 1,200 episodes. Away from the microphones, he published the essay L'invenzione del boomer (The Invention of the Boomer) (2023) for UTET publishing house. He was interviewed by writer Matteo B. Bianchi, as part of the "I MILLE Welcomes" series.
The common thread of your career seems to be the voice: first radio, now podcasts. Let's start with an apparently simple question: what's the difference between written journalism and spoken journalism?
The main difference, in my opinion, is context.
Context is everything. Within a publication, you have meaning as a byline, regardless of tone. I've written for magazines like Wired, Rolling Stone, GQ and others, but for many years I also wrote daily on my blog, Freddy Nietzsche. That's how I got used to this practice of daily writing, chasing things that happened looking for interesting but personal angles. A fantastic training ground.
Then social networks arrived and that golden period evidently ended. Contexts collapsed and the landscape became quite complicated.
Today we have the official White House account with a photo of Trump dressed as the Pope. Official account, I repeat, so it's normal not to know how to react anymore.
Your podcast, Tienimi Bordone, seems to be the natural heir to Freddy Nietzsche: short episodes, less than ten minutes, where you mix information, passions and comedy. How did this formula come about?
A bit by chance, like all fun things.
When they closed Condor, Luca Sofri opened Il Post. After some time, Il Post launched a subscription that gave access to exclusive content and newsletters, and it worked immediately. Subsequently, a podcast section was opened, free for the first six months, then accessible only to subscribers.
I proposed to Luca a very personal podcast. I recorded two four-minute trial episodes, threw them online and that's how it started, with a handful of few but devoted listeners, practically a secret society.
Then Francesco Costa arrived with his Morning, and subscriptions grew tremendously. With Covid and lockdown, people started listening to podcasts even more because they were locked at home, with ambulances outside and the fear of dying. Every morning Francesco told what was happening, often terrible things, and I thought about subscribers who woke up in the morning, listened to disasters and tragedies, and ended up more dejected than before.
So, since I also like to play the fool, I started putting sound effects, little voices and invented characters into Tienimi Bordone, and the thing took off. A special relationship was created with the listeners and my little world grew.
Today there are over 80,000 subscribers, quite a lot. But I've always maintained this formula, which is, to put it briefly, a bit of my personal stuff and a bit of information.
How do you maintain the balance between these two components?
It works like this: I hunt for ideas that I already know will resonate—after 1,200 episodes, I've learned what clicks. Then I shape these sparks into actual topics.
Early on, I'd go on these endless 10-minute rants, but I realized diversification works better. I can tackle heavy subjects, but I need to make them more digestible for listeners. This doesn't mean sugarcoating or dodging controversial topics—it's about creating space where people can laugh and push boundaries. Maybe throw in some silly voices.
The risk, obviously, is appearing superficial because of the comedic tools. For years this bothered me, but I've come to understand that in Italy, if you deliver serious content in a suit and tie, you're taken seriously. I prefer expressing profound ideas in a gentler, more approachable way.
The salvation lies exactly in this balance.
Within Il Post's daily podcast lineup, I know the others maintain a serious tone, so I get to play the ironic card. I have the luxury of covering absurd stories or bizarre news, but the podcast's core isn't the news itself—it's how that news gets processed. People don't come to me expecting breaking news, but they do want insights, commentary, and entertainment.
Il Post is an independent newspaper, a cultural enterprise that works, where the public willingly pays for exclusive content. What do you think is the secret of this exception?
Il Post offers journalism that didn't exist before: explanatory, clear, direct, without invented quotes or clickbait.
A different proposal that took time to establish itself precisely because these articles appear "bare" on the surface, but actually have extensive documented research behind them. Now it has built a substantial subscriber base.
Many YouTube creators also cultivate audiences willing to pay when there's genuine participation and belonging—and this, for me, is absolutely central. Highly specialized content monetizes easily: if you're passionate about the flute and discover a dedicated channel, you'll happily pay a euro a month.
I'm not the perfect analyst, but I believe Il Post succeeded because it delivers broad information with real personality, making people feel they're part of something meaningful.
Amid the information chaos, fake news and content overload, where do you dig to find reliable stories?
In the most unlikely places.
It may seem trivial, but I spend hours on the most absurd Wikipedia pages, like for example the one comparing Rastafarianism and Judaism, with which I can fill an entire episode. Naturally I also read the New York Times and Il Post, but the best always comes from the strangest and most hidden details.
Earlier you mentioned that with the arrival of social networks all context collapsed, and that today you can see bewildering content like a photo of Trump dressed as the Pope. What do you think about the fact that, in this surreal and complicated communication scenario, many companies that had built entire campaigns around themes like inclusivity, environmental sustainability and social issues suddenly found themselves disoriented, forced to revise plans and messages?
The relationship between activism and brands has become incredibly tangled—and in my view, it's a distinctly American problem. Actually, Californian.
It all stems from West Coast culture, where companies like Musk's and Zuckerberg's have raked in billions within an essentially lawless environment, convinced that society operates on pure technocratic principles.
What you get is this toxic blend of extreme capitalism and warped American Calvinism, where wealth becomes automatic divine endorsement of your righteousness.
I'm not saying every American buys into this, but there's this pervasive undercurrent: if you're making money, you owe nobody anything and have zero reason for shame—in fact, you should barrel forward full steam ahead.
Here's where corporate messaging gets truly deceptive: these same companies spend years devising elaborate tax avoidance schemes—arguably the ultimate form of exclusion—then suddenly care deeply about healthcare benefits and inclusive workplace culture. But only within their own walls, of course. Their communication strategy consistently outweighs actual substance.
It's pure compensation theater. So when an actual villain takes charge, these brands instantly fall in line.
Just days ago, the FBI director eliminated the agency's women's rights division, dismissing it as "wasteful." That tells you everything about the current climate.
Meanwhile, the regulatory gap between the US and Europe keeps widening, especially with this "anything goes" mentality now dominating across the Atlantic.
Last year you published your first book, L'invenzione del boomer, published by UTET, in which you try to build a dialogue between apparently distant generations, like boomers and millennials. What is this attempt at bridging the gap based on?
Every time someone launches into "Ah, today's music, today's movies... in my day everything was completely different," they're committing a spectacular act of perspective distortion.
Those tastes that feel universal and objective to you? They're actually tethered to your specific life—your memories, loves, experiences. So whenever you feel the urge to tear down young people's preferences, that's exactly when you should bite your tongue.
The music isn't deteriorating; you're simply getting older.
Writing about some unbridgeable chasm between boomers and millennials struck me as both obvious and profoundly boring—hardly book-worthy material. Instead, I wanted to reimagine that conflict as fertile ground for genuine exchange and dialogue, not just mutual hostility.
Let's face it: generational warfare isn't exactly breaking news. It's been happening forever—even in the Iliad, veteran warriors complained that the younger generation had gone soft.
Of course, now we've added the "you stole our future" dimension to the mix.
But here's what's interesting: this millennial-boomer tension actually offers something more engaging than our usual apocalyptic doom-scrolling of "We're all going to die." There's genuine energy in that friction, and I find something oddly hopeful about it.
Informing seriously doesn't mean boring to death: 4 things we take home
1. Seriousness and lightness can (indeed must) coexist
Effective content doesn't have to be boring or stiff. You can be profound even with irony and lightness, because knowing how to balance information and entertainment is the real key to keeping people's interest alive, especially today when attention is a precious commodity.
2. Always go beyond the predictable
The most fascinating stories hide in the least frequented corners: apparently insignificant details, marginal anecdotes. Looking where others don't look leads to the discovery of original and surprising ideas. In a landscape saturated with superficial information, standing out means knowing how to find value in the improbable, unexpected and curious.
3. A community is worth more than a thousand clicks
Creating belonging is much more powerful than simple traffic or virality. True editorial or creative success is based on an audience that follows you because they feel they share values and passions with you. When people feel they're part of something, loyalty becomes spontaneous and lasting.
4. Enough nostalgia: dialogue is necessary (and also fun)
Criticizing the present because it's different from the past leads nowhere. Dialogue between generations, even distant ones, is not only possible but necessary and can be surprisingly stimulating. It's not music or culture that gets worse over time: music simply changes, and the comparison between past and present is an opportunity to discover new perspectives, question ourselves and find meeting points that enrich everyone.
