It is desirable that the newspaper cover public educational policies critically, but it should do it more appropriately
The Chamber of Deputies on Dec. 6 approved the Fund to Maintain and Develop Basic Education (Fundeb), created to replace its predecessor Fundef and finance, starting in 2007, basic public education. The project had been working its way through Congress for a year and a half.
Folha reported passage of the measure discreetly on the front page Dec. 7 (“Fund for basic education is approved by Chamber”) and gave it a little more than a half page in the daily news section, with most of the space that day taken up by the airport crisis (amid a slowdown by air traffic controllers). The next day the newspaper published an editorial (“Basic doubts”) in which it covered regulations for the new fund, but recognized its importance: “As a response to those anxious for more investment in basic education, the project sounds promising.”
On Monday, however, the newspaper published a story with a focus that seemed mistaken. With a strong headline, the newspaper declared that “Fundeb assists same area as the ‘family basket’ program” (in northern and northeastern states) and sought comment from opposition politicians, who said they feared that the administration could make electoral use of the new fund.
I wrote in my internal critique: “If one of the objectives of Fundeb is precisely to ‘inject resources into basic public education, mainly in the poorest regions’ it is utterly natural that the states in the Northeast and North be considered for more resources from the fund. For this reason the focus taken by the newspaper about the policy seems excessively political. It seems logical that this happened, doesn’t it? The newspaper itself was defending investments in public education as a path to pull the country out of its backwardness. It would be strange if most of those resources went to So Paulo, wouldn’t it?” From my point of view, the newspaper was mistaken in focusing on the criticism by worrying prematurely about the use of politics for the new initiative and leave behind the deepening gaps and doubts raised by experts.
Folha’s reporting indicated that Fundeb would give priority to assistance for poor states, already contemplated by the “Family Basket” program, which was based on a simulation of resource distribution from the fund done by a professor at So Paulo University, Jos Marcelino de Rezende Pinto. It was a simulation because the new law did not have precise regulations, and it is not possible to know exactly how distribution will be carried out.
The next day, Letters to the Editor published a letter by the same professor lamenting Folha’s political use of his estimates, showing that the poorest states remain at a disadvantage of being helped by the fund and criticized the press: “Folha and the rest of the media in recent days gave more space to the ‘air blackout’ than they have given to education in recent years. Is that because those in the middle class (who subscribe to Folha) don’t go to public schools? I believe that if Folha wants to do justice to its motto ‘A newspaper at the service of the country’ it needs to take education more seriously – with less opinion and more reporting. Why doesn’t it create a section on education as the better newspapers around the world have done?”
You can’t evaluate Folha’s education coverage from this story alone. But the professor is right when he says the press should take the topic more seriously. There is a huge gap between daily journalism and the perception, now consensual, about education as a fundamental factor in development.
This gap is obvious in one aspect. Coverage of Fundeb in Folha over the past 18 months was almost exclusively devoted to how the project worked its way through Congress. There were few stories with discussions about the content of the new fund and its consequences for public education.
The opinion section, however, in 2006 alone had four editorials about the topic. That shows there is an attitude at the newspaper about the problem, but it does not translate to day to day.
A survey of Folha’s archives shows a small drop in coverage of education comparing the first half of 2005 with 2006 – 3 0.000000ewer stories. In that period the newspaper lost Sinapse, which made no difference in the quantity but in the quality. There was a big drop (11%) in stories in the daily news section about college entrance exams (131%). Education is not the social topic most covered by the newspaper. It is way behind health (1,399 stories against 879), which also suffered a decline (32%) when you compare both halves of the year.
It is desirable that the newspaper cover public policies critically. But do it more appropriately.
Another version
Editorial decision
Guilherme Canela is coordinator of academic relations for Andi (News Agency for the Rights of Children).
“Daily analyses done by Andi of 50 Brazilian newspapers noted that coverage of education by the press shows a reality quite similar to the successes and challenges faced by basic education in Brazil: universal education for the population ages 7 to 14 years is not followed, in the same proportion, by an increase in quality. The same diagnosis fits the press.
“Between 1999 and 2004, the survey showed 299 0rowth in the quantity of stories about public policies concerning child and adolescent education. Coverage increased the convergence of sources consulted and, in the social arena, it gave more attention to public policies and less to individual cases. Research shows that few stories deal with education as a social right (3.8%) and even fewer journalistic investigative pieces (3%). Here is an enormous additional distortion: higher education gets more coverage by the press, with 33.40f stories, while basic education only gets 16.4%. Could it be that the press gears coverage only toward the interests of its readers, who are concerned about university access for their children?
“In summary, education has won important space over the past 10 years. Meanwhile, the qualitative gains are even less significant than the importance this topic demands. The good news is that the basics for advancement in the area of journalism, as occurs in real life in Brazilian education, are a given: an editorial decision is necessary to make it effective.”
The press on the press
Cultural agenda
“I have the impression that the day in which cultural movers and shakers go on strike, journalists will have nothing left to write, since they are all addicted to the cursed agenda of the week.”
-Srgio Augusto, journalist (“Valor,” Jan. 15, 2006)
Translation by John Wright
