Newspapers are not TV. News stories are not soap operas. But what happens is that readers frequently get to the end of a story with the feeling that something important, even essential, is missing and that only in the next episode, maybe, will you fill in all the holes.
If suspense in TV fiction is an artifice, part game – even the secret to its success – at newspapers its different: a hole can be the result, simply, of an omission.
Here are two examples taken from Folha last week:
On Monday, the newspaper published a story about the International AIDS Conference that was being held in Barcelona, Spain, with the headline: UN praises Brazils AIDS program.
Those who closely follow the topic certainly know how Brazils needle exchange program works. But, for the majority of readers, its not common knowledge.
On occasions such as this one, the newspaper would offer better service to its readers if it at least explained how it is structured, how much funding is available, and how diverse organizations are involved in the program.
Such information, however, was not in the story. Was the news there? Yes. Were there mistakes? Nothing would indicate that. But was it possible to fully understand the topic? Not really.
On Thursday, a story announced: Europe proposes cut in agriculture subsidy. It was an important story referring to the European Unions Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), with possible consequences for Brazilian farmers. There was no explanation, however, about what it is, how it was formed and PAC mechanisms that have been put into place.
As much as they may wish, readers will not find any elements with further information about the topic and understand, for example, why France is one of the countries most opposed to this change.
Dental telephone
I also noticed a small, interesting story that was published in Folha on June 27 under the headline Dental telephone.
It said, English engineers created a telephone that can be implanted in a tooth. It has a small vibrator and a receiver that uses radio waves. To install it all you need to do is go to a dentist. The creators expect that this will be the first non-medical implant in the body.
It gives the impression that the telephone is already available, and to get one all you need to do is go to a dentist. Two days later, however, I read story in another newspaper (O Estado de So Paulo, carrying an Associated Press story) which said that it is only a prototype whose manufacture hasnt even been announced by any company.
Folha published the story first, and this is noteworthy. But it erred in not making it clear. Comparing this with a legal document, its like preparing a contract, getting it stamped and submitting it for all parties to sign, but leaving payment dates blank.
Its true that a newspaper story is not a TV soap opera, nor can it be considered an academic thesis. A certain amount of superficiality is part of the product. Within these limitations, the challenge for the journalist is to pack the story with the maximum amount of background and context about the events so the main news, concentrated in principle in the headline, does not result in an abstraction of any data, in the final instance, virtual.
If it were possible to be certain that all the doubts found in the course of reading a newspaper would be cleaned up in following editions, none of this would matter. But the truth is, as you know, that things are far from that point.
There is room at the newspaper for working to avoid acceptance of incorrect news, in which readers ingenuously believe that they have learned everything when, in reality, they didnt even understand a bunch of nothing.
Numbers helped
Its natural that messages from readers to the ombudsman department fluctuate depending on events and how they think about the news they read. In the second quarter of this year, for example, with the effect of the World Cup of soccer, messages referring to sports coverage almost tripled in relation to the first quarter, going from 62 to 182, with the biggest concentration in June (94).
Still, there was not a burst, a probable sign that World Cup coverage in general, like what was shown in the survey published on the front page of the World Cup 2002 special section on June 21, did not disappoint readers.
According to a Datafolha survey, carried out in the middle of June, 960f those interviewed thought that the section was great (41 percent) or good (55 percent).
Important increases in messages also occurred during the same time period in the national news section (67 percent) and daily news (53 percent), a reflection that the October presidential campaign is heating up.
Related to this is the 97 increase in the total number of messages sent to columnists at the newspaper.
Compared to the second quarter of 2001, the total number of messages showed an increase of 15 percent. Comparing successive half-year periods, there was a 4.8 percent reduction.
While the portion of letters had a small increase (from 2.5 percent to 3.4 percent), e-mail maintained clear dominance as the main means of contact, with 87.6 percent reaching the ombudsman that way. The average time it took to respond to readers in the quarter was 2.29 days.
Finally, a curious statistic: While the total number of messages increased 56 0.000000rom the first to second quarter, the praise category grew only 10 percent. Its share of messages fell from 3.3 percent to 2.5 percent.
