As any good freelancer knows, it is a good habit to go and visit your editors personally whenever you have a chance to be in your home country. So I am just back from a tour of the newsrooms I work/have worked with in Milan, Italy, and the mood is rather gloomy. Empty seats and switched-off computers, dramatic cuts in working time, forced retirements, those who still cling on to their seats working desperately to achieve at least the same quality as before.

Even the editor in chief of…