Born in Beirut to a Jewish family, he worked at the dailies Lotta continua, Il Lavoro di Genova and Il Manifesto, and has been a political correspondent for the weekly L’Espresso since 1983.

From 1993 to 1996 he was deputy director and, until 1998, correspondent of La Stampa.
For a few months he was also director of TG1 for RAI (2000). In 2001, he moved to the TV station La 7, where he remained until 2013, hosting until 2012 the program L’infedele  [The Infidel] and in 2013 Zeta. Since 2020, he has been one of the signature names in Il Fatto Quotidiano.

In 2014, he produced the reporting mini-series “Fischia il vento” [“The Wind Whistles”], aired on LaEffe and Repubblica.it, in 2016 “Islam, Italy”, in 2017 “Operai” [“Workers”] and “Ricchi e poveri” [“Rich and Poor”], from 2018 “La difesa della razza” [“Defending the Race” and from 2019 “L’approdo” [“Landfall”] on RAI Tre.

He has published many books, some important titles being Operai [Workers] (1987); Crociate. Il millennio del odio. [Crusades: The Millennium of Hate] (2000); Tu sei un bastardo. Contro l’abuso d’identità. [You Are a Bastard. Against Identity Abuse] (2005); Scintille. Una storia di anime vagabonde [Sparks: A Story of Wandering Souls] (2009); Concetta. Una storia operaia [Concetta: A Blue-Collar Story] (2017); Noi, partigiani. Memoriale della Resistenza italiana [We, Partisans: A Memoir of the Italian Resistance] (2020); L’infedele. Una storia di ribelli e padroni [The Unfaithful: A History of Rebels and Masters (Feltrinelli, 2020); with L. Gnocchi, he edited the volumes Noi partigiani. Memoriale della Resistenza italiana [Noi Partigiani. Memorial of the Italian Resistance] (2020) and Noi ragazzi della libertà. I partigiani raccontano (Feltrinelli, 2021). His last book is Giornalisti da marciapiede (EGA-Edizioni Gruppo Abele, 2022).