Marcello Foa was born in Milan, Italy, in 1963.  He is a citizen of both Italy and Switzerland. Mr. Foa has a degree in Political Science from the University of Milan. He began his journalistic career in Lugano in 1984. In 1989, he went on to become Deputy Foreign Editor and by 1993, Foreign Editor of Il Giornale, one of the leading Italian newspapers founded and managed at that time by Indro Montanelli, widely considered the best italian journalist. Since August of 2005, he worked as a Special Correspondent for International Affairs at Il Giornale and contributed to a number of TV and radio networks, among them BBC Radio, Italian RAI, Mediaset, and Swiss Public TV RSI. He created the successful blog Il Cuore del Mondo in 2007 and continues to post there.

In 2004, Marcello Foa began a career in academia. Along with Professor Dr. Stephan Russ-Mohl, he founded the European Journalism Observatory. He teaches international journalism in Lugano at the Università della Svizzera italiana and in Milan at the Università Cattolica and attends dozens of international conferences.  At the Università della Svizzera italiana, he teaches communication courses with a focus on political spin for the Public Management and Policy program. At the University of Milano and the University of Bergamo, he lectures on international journalism and political spin.  His academic research focuses on institutional communication and spin. Additionally, he is the author of a book on spin-doctoring entitled “Gli Stregoni della Notizia” (The Wizards of Information, Guerini e Associati, 2006) and a historical novel entitled “Il Ragazzo del Lago” (The Boy by the Lake, Piemme, 2010).

marcello.foa@usi.ch