Folha committed a serious mistake in its special section Elections 2004 in the Monday, Sept. 20 editions. The front cover, which was already printing, dealt with advertising by the federal government, run by the left-leaning Workers Party (PT) and the state government, in the hands of the centrist Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), on TV stations.
The idea of the section was pertinent. There is a general feeling that the administrations (federal, state and municipal) increase their advertising campaigns during the electoral season.
Under the pretext of informing or offering services, administrations always advertise heavily, even more during electoral season. It is hard for citizens to have access to all these expenditures and the details (how much each advertising campaign costs, how much went to each news organization, how much was spent per month, etc.).
These numbers should be public and easy for anyone to access. Because this did not happen, the press must obtain it through other means.
The first mistake
That was what the story in Folha did when it sought information from a company that specializes in surveys of TV advertising, Controle da Concorrencia (Competition Control).
The newspaper’s idea was good. With a report about institutional advertising paid by the federal (PT) and state (PSDB) governments and about free electoral advertising, it would be possible to determine if the administrations are advertising a lot or little and if they are advertising more during the electoral season than before.
A survey like this would be important in any city. Even more so in So Paulo, where the two main candidates, Jos Serra and incumbent Marta Suplicy, have the support, respectively, of Gov. Geraldo Alckmin and President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva.
Based on data furnished, Folha concluded that Gov. Alckmin and the Lula administration have been advertising more during the electoral season than before. The state has doubled its advertising, while the federal government has increased ad spending 50%.
Folha, following standard procedure, contacted the two administrations before publishing the story. The chief spokesman for the federal government said, “There was no electoral tie between the institutional advertising in So Paulo and the ad campaign.” The state government said that the numbers in the story were “mistakenly too high” and “overestimated the amount of commercials made.”
This alert tripped a warning light in the newsroom. The company, when sought, confirmed the data. The newsroom then noted that the data do not include campaign spending by the federal government on the mayor race. The company had included the ad campaign.
The newspaper on Sunday night started to print the stories on the front page of the Elections 2004 special section: “Alckmin doubles official advertising on TV after start of electoral hour” (referring to the free advertising on TV) and “Federal advertising increases 500n TV stations.”
In the meantime, the newspaper checked again and came to the conclusion that in the numbers pertaining to the period before the official campaign season (July 1 to Aug. 16), the base for comparison with the electoral period (Aug. 16 to Sept. 7), was “underestimated.” In other words, the error pointed out was detected by the state government spokesman’s office.
By that point, it was late. Nearly 42,000 copies had been printed for readers outside the city of So Paulo.
The newspaper’s main error was in not giving credence to the warning by the state government and starting to print the story before more rigorous verification. For readers, it would not have made the smallest difference if the newspaper took one more day to check and analyze the best numbers and publish if it was sure. The newspaper was premature.
The second mistake
Confirming the mistake, the newspaper’s attitude was correct: it immediately stopped the presses and took the story off the pages.
The next day, it followed with appropriate procedures and published, in Tuesday’s edition, a letter from the state government, in a correction on page A3 and a story (“Folha published incorrect data about advertising”) in the Elections 2004 section.
I believe that, besides these measures, Folha should have published a story on the front page of the national edition advising readers about the mistake because the previous day the story was highlighted on the front page of the newspaper. The procedure for making corrections with the same play as the mistaken story is rare in the Brazilian press. It should be adopted more frequently because it shows readers the willingness to correct and make it right, which should elevate the newspaper’s credibility.
The third mistake
The third mistake has not been committed yet, but it will, traumatized by what happened and giving up on investigating advertising expenditures by the government. It is in the interest of voters to know how much governments spend on advertising during mayoral campaigns. The managing editor at Folha, Vinicius Torres Freire, said that “the newspaper is still obliged to obtain that information.”
The mistake of being premature
Concerning the mistake on Monday, I sought the company that did the surveys about advertising expenditures that are the base for the newspaper’s story, Controle da Concorrencia. A comment by its director, Fbio Wajngarten, follows:
“The numbers were correct, but the conclusions were not ours. I proposed analyzing them with the journalist, so it is difficult to evaluate the raw numbers. This difficulty could have caused the discrepancy between the data furnished and the conclusions that the newspaper reached. Folha should have awaited the conclusion of an analysis of the data before publishing.”
I sought the management at the newspaper to know why they did not wait another day to check the data if they had so many doubts and had been alerted by the chief spokesman for the state government. I received the following proposal from Managing Editor Vinicius Torres Freire: “The numbers given by the consulting company were rejected (and some corrected), given the contrary information provided by the state government. But the editors that were dealing with the story were not duly informed about the degree of insecurity concerning the data about official advertising given by the company. It was, in fact, at the very least a mistake not to delay publication of the story.”
An ombudsman on TV
Culture TV in So Paulo, since Friday, has an ombudsman to receive criticism and suggestions from viewers and make his own observations about programming on the TV station and Culture’s AM and FM radio stations. The first critique by journalist Osvaldo Martins, the first ombudsman on Brazilian TV, can be read at www.tvcultura.com.br.
Martins will have a one-year mandate, renewable for two more. While introducing the new institution, Marcos Mendona, president of the Father Anchieta Foundation, which controls the station, said that the “independence of the ombudsman is guaranteed by a contractual clause that prevents his dismissal or replacement. His observations and commentaries, starting today, have only one mission: the rights of viewers to quality television.” It’s a good sign.
Folha was the first Brazilian newspaper to adopt this role, in 1989. There are still few Brazilian news organizations that have an ombudsman or listener. In a survey that I did, probably
incomplete, I identified only six companies, including Folha and Culture TV.
As I have said, there is strong, growing and healthy pressure by society for quality information, balance and plurality in news media. The institution of ombudsman, whether by its function to listen to citizens or for its role in criticism, is one of the possible ways to make news organizations more sensitive and pressure them. Can it improve the quality of journalism that we practice? I hope so. A list of companies that have ombudsmen, and the web sites to find them, follows. Data about the ombudsman at Folha are at the end of this column.
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“O Povo,” newspaper in Fortaleza: Gulter George (www.opovo.com.br).
“Jornal da Cidade,” de Bauru in So Paulo state: Daniela Pereira Bochembuzo (www.jcnet.com.br).
Rdio Bandeirantes in So Paulo: Maria Elisa Porchat (www.radiobandeirantes.com.br).
Culture TV in So Paulo: Osvaldo Martins (www.tvcultura.com.br).
Radiobrs: Emlia Magalhes (www.radiobras.gov.br).
Translation by John Wright
