Stories about violence
By Bernardo Ajzenberg
October 26, 2003
During a week when the federal secretary for security fell, under an accusation of nepotism, and during which the Chamber of Deputies approved the Disarmament Statute, at least five relevant cases related to criminality and violence occurred or came to light.
Among them, two received treatment from Folha that seemed appropriate: new revelations about the investigation into the death of Nelson Schincariol involving a youth who had a personal relationship with members of the prominent businessmans family in Itu (near So Paulo); and the insecurity of students at schools in the middle- and upper-class Alto de Pinheiros neighborhood of So Paulo.
As for the others, however, the newspaper left a lot to be desired.
On Sunday afternoon, union leader Paulo Gonalves, head of the Neighborhood-to-Neighborhood Alternative Transportation Cooperatives Union in So Paulo, was killed with five gunshots point blank near the organizations headquarters.
Some newspapers highlighted the crime on their front pages Monday. Folha not only didnt do this, but it also consigned the item to a briefs package on the lower part of the last page of the daily news section.
Those who have closely followed the news about urban transportation in So Paulo in recent years know that unions in this area are implicated in violence.
As I noted in my internal critique, dealing with an understandably delicate, violent and politically strategic sector, Folha customarily gives a lot of attention. This time, however, the newspaper badly judged the importance of the news.
Cominelli
The same thing occurred in the matter involving the mechanical engineering student at So Paulo University (USP), ngelo Lus Cominelli, who was found dead in the Tiet River on Wednesday after he was missing for four days (he was last seen in the city center at a party for law students at the university).
News that the youth disappeared was carried Wednesday by O Estado de So Paulo and Jornal da Tarde. Folha only began to report the story in Thursdays editions, with a teaser on the front page and prominent play on the first page of the daily news section. However, the material was dry, supported mostly by data provided by police and a relative. There was not even a profile of the student, no photograph of him nor statements by colleagues.
Estado, for example, published photographs of recovery of the body, a 3-by-4-centimeter picture of Cominelli and an interview with his father, accompanied by a photograph.
Except for some copies of the national edition (which had a whole page with photographs, statements and details about how the youth was buried in his hometown, Cerqueira Csar, attended by 3,000 of the 15,000 residents. Folha stayed on the topic Friday only on an inside page below the fold (the lower part of the page).
In my opinion, such superficial treatment reflects a lack of sensitivity to a story whose ingredients and mystery linger and strongly affect the newspapers readers. You cant help but notice the irony: While Cominellis body was probably already floating in the river, the top of page C6 in the newspaper on Monday carried the following headline: Tiet project reduces chances of flooding.
Galdino
The third case had a stranger background. On Tuesday, Lus Nassif reported in his column in the business section information that one of the young men in jail for the killing of Indian Galdino Jesus dos Santos in Braslia tried to cut his own throat in his cell the afternoon of Oct. 15, just a few days after the publication of a series of stories in major newspapers, including Folha, about privileges that he and his accomplices were enjoying behind bars.
The topic of such privileges is controversial. But what calls the most attention here is that the alleged suicide attempt by the youth was not reported by the media despite the vast space dedicated to the privileges a few days before.
On Wednesday, the Rio daily O Globo published the column Nassif wrote. In Folha, you didnt even see that. The newspaper did not cover that basic information nor produce a story to complement it. In the end, it provided information to readers who were not looking for police news in the business section.
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Concerning the last case, the managing editor informed the ombudsman that the newspapers reporting was continuous and went behind the story in Braslia but that nobody, up to now, has confirmed it officially.
Interrupted strike
On Tuesday, I received the following electronic message from a reader in So Paulo:
On Sunday, I read in Folha that the train employees union would stage a strike starting at midnight Monday. Then I advised my mother and my sister, who ride the train, and they went to work Monday by subway.
We live close to the Jos Bonifcio train station and, to get to the Itaquera subway station, they had to take a bus. On the subway itself, they observed that the trains were running normally.
I would like to know the reason Folha published this news without having checked to see if it was correct.
The complaint refers to a story published on page A17 last Sunday, Oct. 19, reporting that employees of the So Paulo Metropolitan Train Company had approved, in a meeting on Friday night, a strike starting Monday, Oct. 20.
A summary of the explanation sent by the editor of the daily news section was as follows:
1) The story was adapted from one Folhas on-line service put out Friday night, Oct. 17;
2) The information could not be checked because nobody from the railroad workers union could be reached Saturday morning;
3) The person responsible for editing the story at Folha confused the dates: To her, Monday, Oct. 27, which was mentioned correctly in the original story in Folhas on-line edition, had already passed (which, in reality, was Oct. 20);
4) The error was passed along unrecognized by those who cover the beat and by other areas of the newspaper because all of them thought that the news reports on the Internet referred to a topic that would only happen days later, within a week;
5) Between Oct. 17 and Oct. 24, the strike was called off and negotiations resumed.
The newspaper does not commit this kind of mistake often in the coverage of strikes. Besides this, the explanations above, while not erasing the confusion it provoked, have an educational nature and, at least, respond to readers doubts.
But neither one thing nor the other justified the mistake committed or the absence of any material about the negotiations with the union in the following editions. Even less, it does not explain the delay of a week in the publication of a correction which is so simple like the one published, finally today on page A3.
