Even if the World Cup of soccer were not going on now, those who have followed the political and economic news in recent days would understand that some of the stories went overboard. There was no truce.
In its coverage about the upcoming presidential election, Folha slipped in its objectivity last week, having difficulty practicing its basic principle of balanced and pluralistic journalism: It tilted toward the candidacy of Jos Serra (of President Fernando Henrique Cardosos centrist Brazilian Social Democracy Party, or PSDB, and former member of the presidents Cabinet).
Something similar happened, in an opposite sense that ended up being favorable to the left-leaning Workers Party (PT) in the middle of last month, which I pointed out in my May 26 column.
Before going into details, however, its worth mentioning a fact that is not unprecedented and increasingly is taken for granted: A crushing majority of the most powerful media have already jumped on the bandwagon for Cardosos man.
Once Serras candidacy was formalized at the partys convention last week, O Estado de So Paulo, for example, published an unequivocal editorial on Monday under the headline: The nation comes together around Serra. The editorial, full of praise, considered the former health minister the best among the candidates who have offered themselves for the October election.
As I pointed out in my internal critique that same day, while its their right, lets watch and see at what point this formal involvement will deform the news.
Examples
In Mondays edition of Folha, three of the six pages about the presidential race carried headlines about Serra. To avoid looking like a house organ for the PSDB, at least one of them, an interview with Renata Covas Lopes, daughter of the late So Paulo Gov. Mrio Covas (1930-2001), could have been delayed.
On Wednesday, Folha, more than any other newspaper, gave a lot of attention to the coalition between the PT and the Liberal Party, saying it was buried, while noting that the PTs presidential hopeful, Luiz Incio Lula da Silva, would make one final attempt to make the alliance work. At the side of this story was another headline: Serra will get 41.80f the free time on radio and TV (the government uses a complicated formula to allocate the mandatory free broadcast time given to candidates).
As could be seen the next day, space given to the flip-flop in favor of the alliance, even though this could be questioned again, was bigger than the space given to the article with the earlier prediction.
As for the scandal in Santo Andr (an industrial suburb of So Paulo), formal accusations about bribes demanded by the PT municipal government for the purpose of helping the electoral campaign, appeared in the So Paulo edition on Thursday.
Different from what Estado did (which that day carried the most complete information about the matter), Folha did not manage to give any attention to the other side of the people who were accused, not even to the PT. It tried to locate them and told readers about the attempt, but, objectively, it failed (it said that the versions of those accused by prosecutors were duly published in the newspaper on Friday).
Jobim case
The other relevant matter of a delicate nature for Serras candidacy during the week was the reversal by Nelson Jobim (head of the federal election court) of a restraining order which had suspended the convention of the centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) that was scheduled for Saturday, June 15.
In summary: Opponents in the party had obtained on Friday night, June 14, a restraining order from Slvio de Figueiredo, a justice on the court, that suspended the convention. Early Saturday morning, PMDB party leaders were at the home of Jobim (a former member of Congress from that party as well as a personal friend of Serra) and obtained from him a lifting of the restraining order. That decision allowed the convention to proceed, and the partys formal alliance with the PSDB was approved there.
Folha and the Braslia daily Correio Braziliense took a critical stance on Sunday toward what happened early Saturday morning. But there was a difference in the way the facts were sorted out. Correio reported that Jobim didnt only receive the politicians at the bizarre hour and issued a decision in record time, but also (and here is the difference in the news reports) advised the PMDB leaders about how to proceed, in legal terms, to effectively knock down the restraining order.
The story said: Dont file an appeal, Jobim explained. Because it will go to the same judge. He could deny it, and youve already seen what could happen. Start with a grievance and a court injunction against the restraining order because that would come directly to me, he added.
On Monday, Folha reported that Jobim expressed (to PMDB leaders) doubts about the foundation for the restraining order. And it published a box about controversial pro-Serra decisions made by Jobim and the electoral court in the past. But it wasnt anything more than this.
In a column published on Tuesday, the editor-in-chief at Correio, Ricardo Noblat, correctly emphasized that Jobims action served as a type of legal consultant to his former political allies. He asserted that it has more political relevance and could imply more political relevance and more consequences from the standpoint of an eventual irregularity than the swiftness with which the judge acted in the matter.
Equilibrium
The media were negligent in this aspect, limiting themselves to what was said specifically about it, publishing the denials by Jobim (the judge acknowledged having received a group of politicians at his house in the early morning hours but denied that he gave them legal advice).
Even Serras adversaries limited their complaints and accusations to the bizarre hour and the swiftness of the decision reached. Thats the way it went, at least through yesterday.
Emphasizing that the newspaper gave critical treatment to Jobims purposes, the editor for national news, Fernando de Barros e Silva, did not believe that this episode has been closed.
I believe that it should continue to be one of the concerns of the newsroom, but I dont see the newspapers pages as having formed an editorial position favorable to Serra, he said.
Inclination
The push for Serra in the news had already begun to pile up by the end of last week.
On Saturday, June 8, it published statements made by mega-investor George Soros, who believes that Brazil faces two choices: Serra or chaos. This was a first-rate journalistic scoop by the reporter; nobody doubts that it was worthy of publication. However, his adversaries will just have to wait and see who benefits from such a prophecy.
The next day, it published a survey by Datafolha showing Serras growth and Lulas decline, a reduction of seven percentage points in the difference between them. And here there was bias, not from releasing the survey, but in the way the summary of the data in a box at the top of the front page was edited.
Apart from the curves in the totals of voter intentions, it highlighted the relative variations and complementary aspects.
The only candidate said to have positive numbers was Serra (eight points higher in the Northeast). The others got only negative numbers: Lula fell 15 points with voters who earn more than the equivalent of US $750 per month; Ciro Gomes (a former governor of Cear state and ex-finance minister) of the Peoples Socialist Party fell seven points among voters age 60 or older; Rio Gov. Anthony Garotinho of the Brazilian Socialist Party fell five points among voters who are college graduates. Still, Garotinho, for example, gained three points in the west-central region. Why was this fact not highlighted?
Worse: The numbers of the seven leading candidates (green for Serra, yellow for the others) appeared large-size in a box, while the specification (among Northeastern voters, for example) was below and very small. Eleven readers complained to the ombudsman about this visual inference.
Add to this the disappearance of the Ricardo Srgio (the PSDBs former treasurer accused of soliciting bribes) case from the newspapers pages, and you have a more complete picture.
Bear in mind, as the national news editor asserts, that this is not about an editorial option. Im not pointing to any intentions of a conspiratorial nature. Rather, its about a sequence of editorial definitions (valid, in some cases, if you look at them one by one) that ended up showing bias in the news.
Readers did not work with a base of intentions, but that is what they found in the pages of the newspaper. Thats what matters, and it lingers. Its worth remembering that these also are the criteria of history.
