If the plot in the drama surrounding the vice presidential choice of Jos Serra (a former senator and Cabinet member who is the presidential candidate for President Fernando Henrique Cardosos centrist Brazilian Social Democracy Party, or PSDB) was already complicated, Folha managed to tangle things further in reporting its outcome when learning that Rita Camata (of the centrist Brazilian Democrat Movement Party, or PMDB) was chosen for the spot.
Between Wednesday and Friday, readers were given clearly contradictory versions. A political column maintained that Serras publicity team clearly favored Camata instead of higher profile Sen. Pedro Simon. Stories had already said that chief publicist Nizan Guanaes was sitting on the fence.
I pointed out this confusion in my internal critiques starting Wednesday. My critique on Thursday pointed out that once again they carried conflicting information in the political column and news stories. I asked: Who should readers believe?
Despite this, the inconsistency continued Friday, when the political column abandoned the controversy and a story three pages earlier carried a third version: The publicity team had, in truth, expressed a preference for Simon.
As if that were not enough, a column by Janio de Freitas in the same edition cited PMDB President Michel Temer as giving the opposite line: Rita was the choice of Guanaes.
Until the time this column was finished on Saturday the answer was up in the air, and readers were left holding the bag.
Apart from the political aspects involved and which line is really correct, the fact is that Folha is not and should not be a federation of reporters, each shooting for a side and competing publicly in the pages of the newspaper with exclusionary versions. Im not referring to opinions or pluralism, but simply to facts.
Any reader has the right to suppose that somebody made a mistake in checking out information in the stories, whether for not updating from one day to the next or for not eventually fulfilling one of the basic rules of investigative journalism: cross-checking information with different sources. In the most optimistic hypothesis, there had occurred only one error in internal communication.
The inharmonic persistence, therefore, carries an even more problematic doubt: Doesnt this conflict reflect a vulnerability by the newspaper to influences of interests by this or that side? Whatever the explanation and it could be all of these the reader in this case can only lose.
An alert
Last week, publicists for the left-leaning Workers Party (PT) could breathe easily, at least concerning Folha. Facts which were quite uncomfortable arose involving the party, but the newspaper in many cases treated them as much less relevant than they deserved.
On Friday, May 18, rival Estado de So Paulo scooped Folha by reporting the diversion of money for advertising away from what should have funded social programs in the So Paulo city government. Coming back to the topic on Saturday, the newspaper added a revelation: Money has been spent on advertising that should have gone to health care programs since 2001. Despite being an electoral year, no campaign in which advertising occupies a role, which we know is fundamental, has chosen up to now not to put ads on the front page, which is the newspapers showcase.
The report by Elio Gaspari on Sunday about problems in bidding on a government contract in Ribeiro Preto, a city in northern So Paulo state (run by the person chosen by PT presidential candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to coordinate this program in the federal government if he wins) also was on an inside page.
On Wednesday, only a small story came out about the topic that was the headline on Tuesday in the Braslia daily Correio Braziliense: accusations of diversion of money from a union in the capital in 1998 for electoral campaigns, including those of the PT.
Joo Sayad, finance director for the So Paulo city government, acknowledged Thursday a formal mistake by city hall in using the money for advertising. This serious topic didnt get put on the front page either.
On Friday, Folhas competitors published a curious phrase by So Paulo Mayor Marta Suplicy: The legal part is the least, she said in a revealing formulation. This comes from the official who runs the first PT administration in Brazils most-populous city, a showcase for the party which has chosen her to run for vice president on a ticket that leads all the surveys of voter intentions.
Folhas managing editor, Paula Cesarino Costa, asserts that there was nothing about the story on Saturday because, in evaluating the merit of the story according to Folhas work up to that time, there was no consensus among experts that procedures at city hall were irregular. She added: The amount in question was not impressive.
As for the formal mistake, she said, we chose to maintain the same position on the issue. She argued that what Sayad admitted was a mistake of a formal nature and that the secretary defended the destination of the funds. Furthermore, Up to that time, we did not dispute the elements to measure the real possibility of having a process of administrative impropriety against the municipal administration. The option was to give priority to other elements.
As for the mayors statement, it didnt come out due to an editing mistake.
It would be flippant to say here that the newspaper had decided to go easy on the PT in an electoral campaign already in full swing. Given the importance of the facts that have arisen over the past week, however, it would not seem mistaken to consider that it objectively ended up getting close to this. Its valuable as an alert.
Folha needs to better define what it wants in its electoral coverage. Between marketing and real life, between questions about platforms or proposals and pure rhetoric, where is the balance? How will priorities be set?
As for the PT the topic of this column apart from past campaigns, it controls some municipal and state governments with huge political and economic weight. This allows for some positive possibilities as well as risks. Thats the real PT, not political marketing.
Lack of confidence
Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday I play the lottery and check the results in Folha. Today I verified that I had won. When I went to the lottery office to collect my money, I saw that Folha had published the wrong results. I was very disappointed with the newspaper for its lack of attention.
I always thought that it was trustworthy. Now, Im very upset with Folha.
In the first complaint, a reader was referring to the lottery results published on Wednesday. The second criticism was about Folhas guide (which comes out weekly in the So Paulo local edition) from the first week in May, which included a restaurant that had been closed for months. Both of these matters ended up in the corrections section.
According to the newsroom, the first was due to a failure in the computer that is used to compile the table. The glitch ended up reproducing results from an earlier edition, despite being updated by the typist and being checked.
As for the second, it went by an editor different from the one who usually does the job.
Acceptable or not, explanations exist and need to be given. But its difficult to believe that they can restore, at least immediately, the bond of confidence that was broken.
