The three main daily newspapers in Brazil, Folha, “O Estado de So Paulo,” and the Rio daily “O Globo” and two weekly news magazines – “Veja” and “poca” – at the beginning of December received a release from Record Publishing, the biggest in Latin America for non-educational books. Instructions for the press were at the top of a memo in underlined, red capital letters: “Attention: book distributed to press with embargo for Friday, Dec. 10 (publication of stories and reviews is only allowed starting Saturday, Dec. 11).”
Embargo is how journalists designate the agreement in which news media give up getting exclusive material and commit themselves to publishing simultaneously a certain piece of news on the day chosen by the source, which can be a publisher, a recording company or polling organization.
The book sent to newsrooms with the embargo warning was “History of Beauty” by Umberto Eco and Giromolo de Michele. It is a work of art, with hundreds of illustrations throughout its 440 pages and arrives at bookstores right before Christmas with a price of 150 reals (about US $43 at the current exchange rate).
On Saturday, Dec. 11, as had been agreed, the three newspapers came out with very similar cultural sections. “History of Beauty” was on the front page of the arts and entertainment section in Folha (Illustrada) and “O Estado” (Section 2) as well as “Prose & Verse,” the literary supplement in “O Globo.”
Who wins?
As I wrote in my internal critique on Monday, Dec. 13, this is not the first time nor will it be the last that newspapers and magazines make agreements with publishers, recording companies and film distributors and together announce a big marketing campaign at the same time.
A limited survey done with the help of Folha’s archives showed similar operations on Nov. 14 (“A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies,” Cosac & Naify Publishers); Oct. 23 (reissue of “The Continent” by rico Verssimo, Company of Letters Publishers); Aug. 7 (“By a Thread” by Drauzio Varella, Company of Letters Publishers); and June 26 (“The Encircled Dictatorship” by Elio Gaspari, Company of Letters Publishers).
It is always on Saturdays, the day some newspapers publish their literary supplements and all give more space to the book market. One gets the impression that newspapers are more willing to serve publishers than their readers. The question is: who gains with this policy?
Clvis Saint-Clair, head of press relations at Record Publishing, justifies the practice: “The embargo should always be utilized when the material is being released not to one news organization but to all. The practice is used by publicists to guarantee that release is fair and equal regarding their information in the big press, without privileges to “A” or “B.” In this regard, the “guarantee of exclusivity” demanded by some news organizations as coin of the realm to publish reviews, interviews or stories should also be debated: it is not unusual, even depriving their readers of information, for many news organizations to not publish certain stories just because their competitors are already expecting it.”
It is obvious that there are not only two alternatives: participate in the agreement or don’t publish anything. There is a middle road, not always followed by newspapers, mainly when they are facing myths, questioning, deepening the topic, and confronting other cultural productions as good without the same marketing appeal.
As for Eco’s book, while it had been put into the hands of excellent journalists, the treatment that it received was similar, almost exclusively descriptive. It was treated by newspapers as the publisher planned, as a Christmas present. The exception, “Veja,” was rough: “Only the illustrations are worth it. Organized by Umberto Eco, ‘History of Beauty’ does not fulfill all that the title promises.”
In a recent lecture about the challenges of cultural journalism, Daniel Piza, who was at Folha, now is executive editor at “O Estado” and author of the book “Cultural Journalism” (Context Publishing), warned that culture sections can’t only be “a repository of resonance for the entertainment industry.” He recalled that the sections “are prisoners of press releases.”
I agree, although you can’t generalize. I also agree with his other commentary: “In cultural journalism it is very important to do it better than to do it first. Our sections have not done either one or the other. They stop looking alike, not only in the choice and the hierarchy of the topics, but also in their approach. The tone of press releases substitute for critical reviews; the interviews repeat the same banal questions. And the reader does not know what is really good within that mass of events and products.”
Newspapers can’t ignore the consumer market of culture and entertainment. The point is to discover where subordination to this market goes and where the critical exercise and differentiation in journalism stays.
For publishers, recording companies and film distributors, there is no better strategy for a publicity campaign than simultaneous publication in the main newspapers and magazines. The question is to know what is best for readers.
THE EDITORS
“Occasionally it is necessary to accept embargoes”
Speaking of newspapers’ agreements with publishers for the simultaneous publication of stories about publication, I sought the opinions of two editors of culture sections. The comments follow:
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Guillerme Werneck, deputy editor for Illustrated at Folha:
Concering the embargoes by publishers for certain publications, as was the case in the book by Umberto Eco, it is necessary to consider some points.
First, embargoes are not the rule in covering the area of books. And we only give into this request by publishers when we identify that the publication embargoed is a relevant journalistic fact.
Embargoes are agreements that a certain story will not be published before a preestablished date. It is natural that, in the case of important publications, all the news organizations seek to publish on an agreed-upon date to avoid scoops (exclusive information).
As there is a constant dialogue with the main publishers to seek exclusive stories, occasionally it is necessary to accept embargoes. It is obvious that when this is practiced, the publisher is the one with the advantage because he has a visible product in the main news organizations in the country.
On the other side, the newspaper, without pressure for scoops, has the advantage of being able to have the time to produce its story, which, in most cases, results in higher quality material for readers.
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Dib Carneiro Neto, editor of Section 2 at “O Estado de So Paulo”:
Embargoes by publishers should be an unnecessary expedient because they reinforce the mistaken mentality that a culture section is much better when it has managed on numerous occasions, before others, to publish interviews that writers certainly will give to all because it is in their interest to sell books.
In culture sections, use of the term “scoop” is, in most cases, foolish and mistaken. There is no journalistic scoop whatsoever in this obsession to get copies of a book first. The regular reader in this area has a profile in which what matters is not only “what” is published but “how” it is published. It is important that it be well done.
Some publishers at times play dishonestly because they know that they can offer privileges to a certain newspaper obsessed with exclusivity, in detriment to another more committed to readers.
It can act that way because it knows that the latter type of newspaper will not fail to publish the same thing on another day. In the end, it is not a stupid newspaper that deprives its readers of a wonderful topic for the cheap motive that it came out earlier in a competitor. Only journalists see (read?) more than one newspaper, only journalists call a scoop something that is an expected review that could be in the edition another day.
Translation by John Wright
