The best story of the week was produced by an 80-year-old woman from the northeastern state of Alagoas who is a retired maid. For two years she filmed, hidden, from the window of her apartment, drug trafficking in the Copacabana neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro.
At a time when the nation is discussing whether to legalize wiretaps, tapes and denunciations as weapons against corruption, her initiative won praise. She turned over 33 hours of film recorded on 22 tapes to police in Rio.
The effort was followed by journalist Fbio Gusmo starting last year, and the results were published in the newspaper “Extra” on Wednesday, which makes it possible that 13 drug traffickers and nine police officers will be arrested.
Before publishing the material, the woman was protected. She sold her apartment where she lived for 38 years and was placed in the witness protection program. Her name was kept secret: she is called Miss Victoria.
Her living room looked out on a drug bazaar. Through her window she followed the drug trade, the show of force by armed bandits and police corruption. Tired of complaining to police without results, she bought a camcorder with 12 payments. She recorded images of her impressions. “I won’t say that I am not afraid of them, but stopping the filming of these bandits, this I just wouldn’t do that. They are wrong. They are wrong.”
The material that she collected was turned into a story by Fbio Gusmo, the same reporter who days before had revealed the promiscuous, close friendship of soccer players with the main trafficker in the Rocinha slum. Gusmo had the merit to discover Miss Victoria and understand the importance of her efforts. He worked calmly, based on the facts recorded and only published the story when she was safe. It is an obvious caution that is not always taken in the rush to competition.
Remarks by the reporter follow: “What motivated Miss Victoria was indignation for having been discredited by all of the government offices where she went. She wanted to prove that she was speaking the truth and that things could not go on this way.
“The role of journalism is to discover, listen and deal with things with sensitivity, respect and caution in the personal cases that experience the same problem. I believe that we carried out journalism in a way that Miss Victoria deserved. My role was to believe that it was a great story. But, to publish it I had to trod a long and tiring road. I say tiring because it is impossible to maintain distance and not get involved when you interact for more than a year with a person such as her. I was afraid that one day she would not answer the telephone, so they had to convince her that it was very dangerous for her to stay there and needed to convince authorities that something must be done. This was done with the support of the editors, from the start, as an unnegotiable condition to publish the story only when she was in a safe place.”
Brazil in a quagmire
Brazil’s military on Aug. 25 observed Soldier Day with an announcement which honored the participation of Brazil in World War II and now in the U.N. peacekeeping forces in Haiti: “In the past, there were heroic soldiers. Today, the brave blue helmets honor the Brazilian delegation from Caxias taking Brazil’s peace to the world.”
The situation of the Brazilian forces in Haiti is not as tranquil as readers are led to believe from this announcement. The press gave signs that the problem there is aggravated and there are serious questions about the Brazilian command of the U.N. mission.
Folha gave needed attention to the dispatch of troops in 2004. But, now that violence is diminishing, Brazil is responsible for some of the mistakes made in that country, and coverage is irregular, except for one or another story, such as the one published July 12 (“Despite U.N., Haiti becomes ‘no man’s land’”).
Folha published two recent editorials with the same headline, “Brazil in Haiti,” and the same warnings: “The Brazilian mission in Haiti marked one year this month amid growing signs of failure” (June 14) and “Haiti is already becoming a quagmire for Brazil” (the day before yesterday).
The newspaper owes its readers a big story about what has happened in that country. I rewrite the observation that I made in an internal critique on June 6: “Coverage seems to be a repetition, on a Brazilian scale, of what happened in the media in the United States in the Iraq War: the first patriotic moment (extensive and proud coverage of the departure of troops to Haiti) and afterward, following it uncritically. The first phase, if it is well done, will be violent criticism of Brazil’s participation. Readers, as always, will not understand how the country goes from hero to villain from one hour to the next.”
I know that the newspaper’s priority is the internal crisis, but the true history of Brazil’s participation in the U.N. in Haiti needs to be written urgently.
READERS
Religions
In recent days, I received messages from readers who complained about the way the newspaper deals with religion.
Arthur Kaufman complained that the newspaper used “Jewish terrorist” and “Jewish attacks” on the front page and the headline on the story on Aug. 18, “Jewish attack disturbs withdrawal from Gaza.” He believes that the correct use would be “Israeli” because Jewish refers to the religion and not the nationality: “Headlines such as this only serve to provoke animosity against Jews, even against Brazilian Jews, who mostly favor an end to the conflict in the Middle East.”
The deputy editor for foreign news, Marcos Guterman, justified his choice to Folha: “The term ‘Jewish terrorist’ was used by Israel’s prime minister, Ariel Sharon. ‘Israeli terrorist’ could confuse the question, because not only Jews are Israeli citizens. Besides this, one of the main motives of the attack was indeed religion because ‘Greater Israel’ that Jewish colonists defend is the biblical Israel, much bigger than the country designated by the partition of Palestine in 1947.”
Two readers complained about the story “Prosecutors accuse Universal of demolishing houses that were knocked down,” on Aug. 24, in the daily news section. One of the stories refers to a Universal Church temple in Belo Horizonte (Minas Gerais state) as “faith market.” Readers consider the term disrespectful.
Jlio Verssimo, coordinator of the Folha news agency, did not see prejudice: “The use of the term ‘faith market’ was done with the objective only of talking about the space that religions create near their temples to market religious objects. This term was used by Folha in similar situations since 1994 for the most diverse churches, including Catholic, to exemplify kiosks beside the Aparecida Basilica. There was no intention to attack or disparage the activities of evangelicals.”
And finally, reader Anderson da Silva Neves complained about the treatment the newspaper gave to the Wicca religion in the story “For the Raelians, ETs created Earth,” on Aug. 14 in the world news section. The reader felt offended by this passage: “With references to Celtic divinities and associated with witchcraft, the Wicca offended many because some of those followers perform ceremonies nude in the open air.” He also disagrees with the information that the Wicca were created by Gerald Gardner 50 years ago. “We are a religion born in a Celtic crib” that “precedes Christianity by centuries.”
The editor of world news, Vinicius Mota, sees no disrespect “The story was cautious in saying that some of the followers (and not all) of Wicca perform ceremonies nude in the open air.” He was careful to say that “Wicca rejects classification as a Satanic sect as described by some critics.” As for the origin of the religion, the story followed historians.
I agree with the newspaper in the first case. In others, I believe that there should be more caution. In the case of Universal, “faith shopping” did not refer to the commerce next to the temple, but the temple itself, which was a mistake.
Translation by John Wright
