You can’t say that Folha hasn’t paid any attention to the crisis in Haiti. But the newspaper made a mistake in bringing back the team it sent to Port of Prince before getting the final results in the presidential election.
Folha, which regularly covers news on the island, sent various reporters since Brazil became head of the U.N. peacekeeping troops and this year alone has published three editorials about the drama of the Haitians and the role of the Brazilian government.
The attention was justified. First, because Brazil has not developed an international role of this type in a long time. By sending solders, the Brazilian government stirred up dormant nationalistic sentiments. Only this way is it possible to understand the inflated and uncritical coverage that market the preparation and departure of the troops. Another reason to justify so much attention is the fact that Brazil’s participation is part of its strategy to obtain a seat on the U.N. Security Council.
But the most important motivation is that the situation in that country is a total calamity. By stepping on Haitian soil, Brazil got itself involved in a huge mess and there are serious questions by international entities about the behavior of U.N. troops under Brazilian command.
This year alone, the newspaper devoted a page in the Saturday op-ed section to debate whether or not Brazil should continue the mission to Haiti; in January, it sent reporter Iuri Dantas to Port of Prince (“Only uncertainty about the future unites Haitians”) and it did a great report on Brazilian soldiers who returned from the island (“Soldiers reveal horror of life in Haiti”) Jan. 29.
Different from other occasions, the reporter and photographer team that Folha sent to cover the presidential elections, Favio Maisonnave and Jorge Araujo, arrived in Port of Prince in advance. The election was planned for Feb. 7 and the first story (“Haiti is ready for election, Gen. Elito asserts”) was published on Saturday, Feb. 4.
The newspaper features its coverage on Sunday, Feb. 5 (“Haiti has candidates suspected of crimes”) and on the following days, it included teasers and photos on the front page. The election was tumultuous and the vote counting was even more so. One could imagine that the team of journalists might stay in Port of Prince until the vote counting was completed. But that did not happen.
The final story was published on Sunday, Feb. 12 and clearly pointed out the problems that could be seen. According to the reporter’s story, for the first time since the start of vote counting, the favorite candidate, Rene Preval, had less than 500f the valid votes that guaranteed victory in the first round. Maisonnave forecast “violent protests” in the event Preval didn’t win in the first round.
And that’s what happened. But Folha was no longer there to follow the accusations of fraud and the series of popular protests that surrounded the electoral commission and required countries monitoring the vote counting, among them Brazil, to impose a maneuver to guarantee Preval’s victory and avoid an unpredictable second round.
I don’t understand why the newspaper withdrew its team early. I can’t believe that it was for financial reasons.
I wrote in my internal critique on Tuesday: “It is incomprehensible that the newspaper did not keep its special team sent to Haiti to cover the presidential elections until the final results were released. There was no reason to assume that it would be a tranquil vote count. The result is in the newspaper today: “Brazil asks U.N. council to evaluate Haiti” and “Protest causes first death; hotel invaded,” reported with the help of international agencies and Brasilia bureau.
I asked for an explanation and the newspaper admitted the error. Here is the response I got from Marcos Guterman, interim international editor: “Yes, I believe it was a mistake to not have kept reporter Fabiano Maisonnave in Haiti for a longer time. Our plan for this coverage was hurt by the confusing evolution of events, most of all the delays in counting votes and the crisis that this caused. I must emphasize that this problem did not occur only at Folha – reporters sent by competitors left Haiti a day before ours did.”
And in Rocinha
At the end of the afternoon on Wednesday, about 6 p.m., Rocinha, a neighborhood whee about 60,000 people live, was invaded once again by bandits from one of the two biggest gangs that dominate the hills around Rio. The invaders, about 40 altogether, according to police, organized in five slums, dominated by the Red Command, tired to expel the gang that now dominates the sale of drugs.
They entered shooting at transformers and left the hillside darkened. While they knew the invasion plan, police did to prepare to abort or repress it. The confrontation by gangs resulted in five residents killed – one of them a 14-year-old student who had just gotten back from school and others, workers who were coming home from their jobs – and five injured by stray bullets or trampled in the stampede provoked by the panic.
The invaders were driven back, and they fled. Some of them escaped into the hillsides around the slum and came out on the other side of the hill in Alto Leblon, a neighborhood with some of Rio’s most expensive real estate.
Folha covered this badly. Despite the fact that the invasion began about 6 p.m., Thursday’s newspaper had nothing about it. And the Sao Paulo edition, finished about midnight, had only a small item. Friday’s edition caught up with the news and put a teaser on the front page of the newspaper and a page and a half in the daily news section. But the focus, in my opinion, was wrong.
The newspaper reported the invasion and the deaths, but its main highlight was not the horror once again lived by Rocinha residents nor the criminal inefficiency of the police. The inside headline in the newspaper (“Wealthy areas become escape route for traffickers”) was the apprehension that consumed residents of Alto Leblon in learning that their protected neighborhood was vulnerable.
This is not a new problem and it does not affect only Folha. The point of view at newspapers in cases like this tends to be middle class or upper class affected by violent events.
Proof of this distorted vision is the news about reactions by schools. Newspapers almost always report it when well-known private schools in neighborhoods near slums suspend classes. What about schools in the slums? What happens is that they and their students are not news.
It’s as if the slum and its residents were not part of the city. Various studies have called attention to the mistaken way the press covers these neighborhoods. At Folha, one who understood the problem was columnist Demetrio Magnoli in the column “In enemy territory,” published Oct. 20. “The implicit concept is that the slums are enemy territory and a battlefield, not part of the city of Rio de Janeiro. The first corollary is that the residents of the slums are foreigners, not Brazilian citizens. The second is that among them a hostile military force hides, not the complex network formed by organized crime and common criminals, with uncountable ramifications on the hillsides, the asphalt and even among the police.”
Translated by John Wright
