The newspaper’s coverage of political news errs in publishing incomplete information lacking the necessary corroboration.
Folha on Thursday published, under the headline “Congressional investigations end with many indicted and few punished,” an evaluation of the results of three parliamentary investigative commissions that dominated the political news all last year and the first half of this year, with probes into the postal service, bingo games and bribery scandals.
It was clear for those who followed the activities of these commissions that all of them gave into agreements by political parties, and this certainly contributed to impeding the investigations. The press has partial responsibility for the frustrating results of the investigations. At rare moments it has managed to escape from dependence on information collected and manipulated by insiders in the commissions and advance on its own efforts. Even now we see how the coverage was flawed. This week Folha published two stories that illustrate our deficiencies well.
On Monday, the newspaper published a flawed story under the headline “Joo Paulo could have received 30,000 reals (about US $13,350) more from Valrio.” Joo Paulo Cunha of the governing Workers Party (PT) is the former president of the Chamber of Deputies; Valrio is entrepreneur Marcos Valrio de Souza who helped the PT raise money to distribute to members of Congress.
The story was already undone by the headline, which used the word “could” as a possibility, but without any assurance. The headline already made it clear that there was no proof. It is even possible that the congressman received more money in the scheme, but the investigation by experts who looked into the postal service scandal and provided information for Folha still have not found proof. On Wednesday, the newspaper published a long letter from the congressman who responded to the story. I won’t go into the merits of his arguments when he exercises his legitimate right to defend himself and that, if he was lying, sooner or later he will be contradicted by evidence that appears. But he is right when he says that use of the word “could” in this case indicates “conjecture.”
A similar case occurred in Friday’s edition in a story about the “Furnas list.” The list is a document contested in a report by opposition politicians who benefited from funds diverted from the Funas electric company for the 2002 electoral campaign. The opposition accuses the government of forging the list, which is the object of an investigation by the federal police.
Folha’s story, “Copy of Furnas list differs from original,” is based on an “apocryphal letter.” A newspaper such as Folha can’t publish a story based on an “apocryphal letter.”
I received from Fernando de Barros e Silva, the national editor, the following explanation: “The information that the original of the Furnas list investigated by the federal police is not the same as the photocopy that the lobbyist circulated at the end of 2005 was checked by Folha. The news was not based on an apocryphal letter, but on our own investigation through different sources. The ‘apocryphal’ letter, which, according to assertions in the same story, was written by advisers to the (opposition) Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) in Minas Gerais, only carried the same information. Maybe the story did not make this sufficiently clear.”
In my opinion, the subhead and the story made it clear that the newspaper’s source is that letter.
These two cases show how the newspaper was hasty in publishing unproved information. In the two related matters, it had important information to begin its own investigation in search of proof. But it preferred to publish them incomplete. The result is a lack of credibility.
The Cascavel Forum
Cascavel, a young town of 280,000 inhabitants in the southern state of Paran, according to the IBGE statistical institute, has four daily newspapers, four weekly newspapers and various TV and radio stations that report local news.
The press in Cascavel is not much different from that in other cities around Brazil, dominated mainly by politicians or economic interests seeking political influence. It is a well-equipped media, focused on the community, but with few professional resources and dependent on advertising by public entities.
What’s new in this city was the creation, at the end of last year, of the Forum for Quality Journalism in Cascavel. I don’t know of another initiative like this one.
The forum was created, according to one of its founders, Emlio Fernando Martini, director of the newspaper “Hoje,” with the objective of confronting the loss of credibility by the local press, marked by the publication of contradictory information and the practice of extortion.
The forum brings together two daily newspapers (besides “Hoje,” also “O Paran”), a weekly (“O Impacto”), a local affiliate of the Globo TV network, a radio station, three universities with journalism courses and two journalists’ associations.
The letter of principles that was released in September explains the main concern of the group: reverse the negative view that society has of local journalism, “which, according to current opinions, has been that way for a long time, with a lot of room for complaints (almost always against the owners), extortion, favoritism, pandering, gratuitous offenses (against those accused of violating laws), trading favors (in general, involving public funds) and everything else pernicious that the press full of devious interests could counter and disseminate.”
It is worth remembering that Folha on two occasions did stories that showed that newspapers and magazines in Paran received money from the state government to publish advertising as if it was news, a lack of respect for readers and the code of ethics of newspapers and a crime against public coffers.
One of the stories showed that in 1991 six newspapers in Paran tricked their readers with advertising that looked like news stories; another told about 68 newspapers and six magazines using the same practice in 2002.
The creation of the forum is part of a movement disconnected from the pressure by society to improve journalistic practices. The most frequent initiatives have been the formation of press observers, as I already mentioned in other columns. The reach of these initiatives still is very restricted. But it is a start.
Letter of principles
Here are the five directives that the Forum for Quality Journalism in Cascavel intends to be adopted by news organizations in the city:
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“1st – Stimulate the practices of citizens, such as voluntary involvement in public issues;
2nd – Respect the dignity and image of a person, family or any other social group;
3rd – Practice loyal competition among news organizations;
4th – Absence in news organizations of vices, extortion and trading favors of any type;
5th – Legal practice of journalism, in all instances.”
Translation by John Wright
