In the '90s, "giftomania" led the biggest Brazilian newspapers to the
pinnacles of circulation and, on the following decade, to
the discomfort of severe hangovers. Newspapers were actually
being distributed for free, which subverted the sacred principle that
the reader needs to pay for information in order to respect it.

Alberto Dines

Bad actors are afraid of critics—and when they're famous, they hate them. The big press can be compared to ham actors converted into divas. The diva gets furious at anyone who unveils her faults and failures. She believes herself to be owner of the truth, adamantly reserves the power to judge and can't stand being crossed.

The irritation of O Globo's newsroom director with the comments of this Observer about the frigid and bureaucratic performance of his paper in covering ACM's (senator Antonio Carlos Magalhães) megatap is an example.

In his long-awaited rentrée, Bernardo Ajzenberg, the ombudsman of Folha de S. Paulo raised an issue which has been forgotten but is of crucial importance: the damaging effects of "giftomania" and "gift-dependence". In the 1990s, this phenomenon led the biggest Brazilian newspapers to the pinnacles of circulation and, on the following decade, to the discomfort of severe hangovers.

At the time, concerned with the aberration which converted marketing departments into owners of the destinies of the Brazilian press, this Observatório kept the matter under continuing scrutiny. Newspapers were actually being distributed for free, which subverted the sacred principle that the reader needs to pay for information in order to respect it. 1996 was the peak of the "giftomaniac" madness. It is important to record that even before the Observatório was born, the subject had been raised in  the section "Circo da Notícia" (News Circus), of the Imprensa magazine.

The treatment given to our warnings was the worst possible one. We were doing a favor to the daily press but were treated as "enemies" and "defeatists". We tried to avoid a debacle and were labeled subversive. Now, almost ten years later, Folhão e Globão—the newspapers who made the most use of the drug in question—concede that they were throwing paper away. There is no residue left from those fantastic circulation numbers. Only the current debt, tightness and hardship.

When this Observatório insurrected against bluff journalism and the tapping mania which corrupted our investigative journalism in both the newspaper and the magazine segments, we were also criticized, marginalized, treated with disdain and spite. Now the promiscuity among tapping politicians and the interceptophiliac media are wide open, with devastating results for both.

The ire of the Goliaths, when hit by a small rock from down under, does not limit itself to big issues. In cases as momentary as the absence of composure, the irritation of those who are caught is identical.

When this Observer called attention—in April of 2002—to the carnaval that O Globo made with the graphic redesigning undergone by the Wall Street Journal, there came the indefectible complaint against our "injustice". We demonstrated that the fanfare had been exaggerated and that changes in the appearance of a U.S. newspaper did not deserve an elaborate story on a full page.

Mostly because the office in charge of the redesigning had an associate who worked as part of the newspaper's regular team of contributors (Carlos Alberto Di Franco). Everything indicated that it was a favor story ("reco" or recommended, in the jargon of the newsroom). It indicated, mainly, that the design changes in the WSJ had been overvalued as if the intrinsic quality of a communications medium relied exclusively on its cosmetics.

In its 2/10 issue, New York Observer informs that the redesigning of the front page of the WSJ, trumpeted as revolutionary not only by the board of the newspaper but also by the advisers who did it, has been disastrous. It is creating big problems. The WSJ, who always intended to be a "different" newspaper, has become a paper without a differential. And worst of all: the remodeling eliminated the big investigative stories, which were published on the front page and were responsible for most of the Pulitzer prizes awarded to that newspaper.

The mystique of the WSJ went down the drain, along with the applause from The Globe. The Observatório, who had merely done its job, was the one who paid the price.

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 

Translated by Tereza Braga, email: tbragaling@cs.com  

This article was originally published in the Observatório da Imprensa (The Press Observatory)— www.observatoriodaimprensa.com.br

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