The Press in Custody, in Brazil

The Brazilian press was not sufficiently shocked by the recent
massacre in Rio's Detention Center, nor was able to shock its
readers. Much less sound the alarm to wake a federal government
immersed in its dramas of conscience. Worse than lying is silence.
Silence saps the energy of those who seek action, chills indignation.

Alberto Dines

Machiavelli's ideal is a Prince who does not need to answer to his subjects. Today, when governments fall silent it is a sign that there is no pressure on them to speak, a pressure that can only come from the press.

If the couple governing Rio de Janeiro decided to adopt the silent treatment for four days in order to deal with the calamity at the Casa de Custódia (Detention Center) in Benfica, it falls to the press to make a federal case out of it.

Worse than lying is silence. Untruths end up being uncovered, but silence demobilizes, saps the energy of those who seek action, chills indignation. Above all when public opinion begins to be numbed by repetition.

Anthony Garotinho, the "communicator", knew what he was doing when he mysteriously disappeared soon after the calamity in Benfica had begun. He was counting on the weekend, the providential hiatus invented by Brazilian journalism.

He could foresee that if the news about the uprising, which had begun on Saturday, did not continue to grow on Sunday, by Tuesday it would be off the front pages or forgotten.

Garotinho was wrong: he could not imagine the dimensions and degree of brutality of the massacre; the case continued to dominate the news until the following Friday.

But he hit the target on the effects: without information, the Carioca press was not sufficiently shocked by the episode, nor was able to shock its readers. Much less sound the alarm to wake a federal government immersed in its dramas of conscience.

This does not mean that O Dia and O Globo, the principal newspapers in Rio, hid their coverage. They followed the case in a reasonable way, beginning with the Sunday edition of May 30.

But, what draws the attention of the observer is that the most bruising, insistent and dramatic coverage—and hence the most journalistic—was that of the daily Extra, of the Grupo Globo, the circulation of which is not comparable in quantitative or qualitative terms to the two major newspapers mentioned.

If this emphasis by Extra were transferred to O Dia and, above all, to the portentous Globo, clearly it would produce a chain reaction, uncontrollable, with quite different results. Particularly on the media in São Paulo, which generally has more penetration in the political sphere.

This is the question: if the ungovernability of Rio de Janeiro becomes a national issue, will the Garotinhos be able to continue unpunished? A short and rude editorial on the first page of O Globo, even on Monday (May 31, when there was already some idea of the slaughter) would have provoked a political storm quite different from the resigned reaction that the episode produced.

Unmasking Those in Power

And so we must ask: what about the Jornal do Brasil?

JB has abdicated its responsibility to do journalism. It looks like a newspaper, comes out regularly like a newspaper, has the formal attributes of a newspaper, has a history as part of Brazilian journalism, but at this point it is moved by different dynamics and priorities than those of a newspaper.

It may even be reinventing journalism, but this is not the journalism for which it was one of the exponents, and which continues to be practiced by the majority of its competitors.

It is clear that the JB is in a crisis. Not just in a financial crisis, but an internal crisis. Of the nine vice-presidents that adorned its staff before the tragic weekend, two journalist vice-presidents were resigning by Friday (Augusto Nunes and Cristina Konder) and the name of a third was removed from the staff on Saturday, without any notice to the readers (Wilson Figueiredo, with 42 consecutive years on staff!)

The JB still has excellent professionals in charge of editing the newspaper, but the company and the directorship have forgotten that journalism is not collage of news items—journalism is a political commitment to society.

The proof of this is in the Tuesday edition (June 1^st), when the dimensions of the Benfica massacre were already known, even by the readers of the newspaper themselves.

On this crucial day, JB took stock of the case with an insignificant note on the lower part of the front page! Next to it, ten times more prominent, to satisfy the enormous contingent of socialites who devour its social columns, an enormous photo of a chilly carioca showing off "a basic little jacket". We could be talking about brioches.

And, if that were not enough, on Thursday (June 3^rd)—after the correct headline from the previous day, "Traffickers' inquisition kills 30 prisoners"—the newspaper maliciously retreated to move into the area of business with this pearl across eight columns: "Rio exchanges tax for security".

It is just one more scam developed in the Garotinho labs to hide their double incompetency: incompetent in looking after public security, and in attracting incautious defenders of free enterprise: companies that finance public security will have a 10 percent discount on their ICMS (Imposto Sobre Circulação de Mercadoria e Serviços—Tax Over Circulation of Goods and Services).

It has since been discovered that this headline was financed by the sponsors of a seminar organized by the Grupo JB, with the stunning governor Rosinha starring, turned into a special section the following Saturday.

It would be unfair to blame only the Jornal do Brasil. O Dia is also giving indications that it doesn't want to embarrass the political project of the Garotinhos, above all after the falling out between the two heirs of the late Ari de Carvalho, which transformed the arch-conservative Ronald Levinsohn into a sort of informal publisher of the newspaper.

O Globo has more than enough claw to show to the country the débâcle of the federal unity where the Organizações Roberto Marinho have their headquarters. To delegate this task to the young Extra is a way of relegating the Carioca catastrophe to the parochial sphere.

Not just the invasion of Iraq, but in Benfica as well, it became clear that the press is crucial for unmasking those in power. Or for innocently furthering their ignoble ends.

Alberto Dines, the author, is a journalist, founder and researcher at LABJOR—Laboratório de Estudos Avançados em Jornalismo (Laboratory for Advanced Studies in Journalism) at UNICAMP (University of Campinas) and editor of the Observatório da Imprensa. He also writes a column on cultural issues for the Rio daily Jornal do Brasil. You can reach him by email at obsimp@ig.com.br.

This article was originally published in Observatório da Imprensa — www.observatoriodaimprensa.com.br.

Translated from the Portuguese by Tom Moore. Moore has been fascinated by the language and culture of Brazil since 1994. He translates from Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian and German, and is also active as a musician. Comments welcome at querflote@hotmail.com.