Farewell to Nichi Grauso, the 'visionary' who brought the first newspaper to the web

To many he was a 'visionary', capable of looking and going beyond. A forerunner of technology and of what would be the changes in the world of information. The man of impossible challenges: private radio, television and the internet when everyone thought they were impossible feats. Nicola - Nichi - Grauso, from Cagliari and former editor of L'Unione Sarda until 1999 when the newspaper changed hands to its current owner Sergio Zuncheddu, has died at the age of 76.

Grauso's revolution began in 1975 with the birth of Radiolina, the first private Fm radio station in Sardinia and among the first in Italy. The adventure continued with the founding of Videolina, the island's first television station and today a leading regional broadcaster. On the way another important challenge. Having consolidated the primacy and strength of the two broadcasters, in 1985 there was the purchase of l'Unione Sarda, the island's first daily newspaper.

And it is precisely from L'Unione Sarda that the digital revolution starts. Because, in this case too, Grauso looks far and wide. It was 1994 when the daily L'Unione Sarda landed on the web. 'It is the first online newspaper in Europe and second in the world after the Washington Post,' he would always repeat during official presentations. The digital revolution has now begun, and upstream there are several collaborations, including with Nobel Prize winner Carlo Rubbia.

And it was the same year that the challenge of Video On line, the streaming transmission of Mariella Nava's concert, began. An adventure that ended in 1996 with the move to Telecom Italia. The beginning of a revolution that, over time, saw all the other titles land on the network.

One challenge after another. Grauso's 'anticipations' are repeated later on. It was 2004 when he founded Il Giornale di Sardegna, which then gave rise to the Epolis network of local newspapers, present in most Italian regions. A new course that once again revolutionised the world of information. Because, at a time when there was still no talk of smart working, it saw the birth of a way of working that, at the time, was reminiscent of widespread editorial offices, with journalists who, from anywhere in the world, as Grauso himself repeated in various presentations and interviews, could work on the page thanks to a laptop, mobile phone and connection. Then the meltdown and the end of that experience. In the interviews he later gave, he did not hide his interest in the rapid change and the levers represented by the web but also by social media. In 2024, in February, the discovery of an inoperable tumour and the battle to fight it. The last battle he failed to win.