Suit, hat, jewel, Rolls Royce
By Bernardo Ajzenberg
July 20, 2003
One of the few certainties when Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office in January was that the inauguration of the former metallurgist as president of Brazil would create unprecedented symbolism while changing the landscape at the presidential palace and residence. The challenge was to capture the details about how the new sprit was shaped involving both the president and the first lady.
There was attention to the fact that the barbeque at the presidential retreat was fired up again, the presidents pickup soccer games with friends, the dog Michele, direct contact with the population, Lulas emotionalism, sweat and the sight of bearded men (like Lula) in positions of authority.
Last Wednesday, however, the news gave signs that after 180 days, this item of coverage needs to be revised. On that day, the newspapers all published with huge emphasis on their front pages the gaffe during the ceremony at the Spanish Court when the door on the Rolls Royce in which Lula and his wife were riding was shut after he got out but before she could leave the car with him (see to side).
Was that a curious episode? Sure it was. Was it worth showing? Yes. But its obvious that an exaggerated amount of space was given to a secondary event in which neither the president nor first lady was at fault.
The same way, it exploited the indiscretion of Lula wearing a suit during a gala dinner in which the Spanish royal couple dressed in formal evening attire. That event, according to columnist Clvis Rossi on Friday, had no precedent in terms of prior agreements about the ceremony.
One thing is to report, as Folha did weeks before, free use by the first lady of personal services, of jewels given (later returned), etc. This tells about a relevant ethical and symbolic question.
Lulas use of the cap worn by the Landless Peasants Movement also did not fail to produce a stammer since Lula now wears one cap after another precisely to dilute the effect of the Landless Peasants one. Up to that point we are in the realm of legitimate, democratic criticism in the gathering of facts in controversial journalism, but it is healthy and necessary.
The treatment given to the cases of the Rolls Royce and the attire at the formal dinner showed that Folha at least did not commit a worse blunder by taunting or using, in the words of an indignant reader, simple ridicule.
After the first six months of the Lula government, it would be good for newspapers to update the way they deal with the first matter, that of symbols. They need to see at the least that it is not journalistically legitimate to allow the press to be deformed into an instrument of a political opposition that grabs at any pretext to erode and disqualify the president.
Dead is dead
The dramatic situation surrounding the Anglo-American troops in Iraq, who hope to leave the country soon, has grown. They speak about a guerrilla war by loyalists to Saddam Hussein and of the permanence of occupation forces now for an unlimited time period.
All the press internationally made a lot of noise concerning the fact that the number of American soldiers killed in the postwar period (officially ended May 1) has already surpassed that of the Gulf War (1991).
Its no small thing, especially for the reelection intentions of President George W. Bush. Its importance grows if you add up the difficulties for the United States and Britain to prove the motives alleged for the invasion of Iraq (weapons of mass destruction and linking Baghdad to the Al Qaeda terrorist network).
A survey published on the Web site of Editor & Publisher (editorandpublisher.com) last Thursday indicated, however, that the situation is even more serious than TV and the big U.S. newspapers report.
While Folha has also published these, it is usually limited to the number of soldiers killed in combat in what is termed as hostile action. Through last Friday, it was about 150.
Quoting another site, created to keep a running total of the losses by the military coalition based on different official sources, the story in E&P said that, considering all the deaths, the total reaches at least 224 Americans. Among those, 85 came after the end of the war (against a total of 33 published by the media, as combat deaths since May 2).
The data are important not only because in the end dead is dead, but also because, according to the story, those deaths outside of combat analyzed by the site one by one did not occur so frequently outside of combat.
Written by Greg Mitchell, the story argues: You could assert with certainty that almost all these people would be alive if they had returned to the United States.
Its difficult to be sure that the numbers analyzed or counted by these sites are also completely true (I left out other surveys that could also exist). But they should serve as an alert for the newspaper not to limit itself to partial statistics divulged by the U.S. media.
Would that not happen by connecting the official data of combat deaths with some numbers such as, for example, those outside combat that offer readers another viewpoint and, furthermore, something closer to reality?
Taming off the record
The case of Jayson Blair, that reporter-inventor fired by The New York Times in May, stunned the media around the world and imposed a need for various changes in direction.
Last Thursday, Folha internally showed its willingness to face at least two of them: a reduction in the use of off the record information in the newspaper, and tied to this, a preventive redesign and transparency in relation to the confidence between reporters and editors/supervisors.
An internal communique to journalists signed by Executive Editor Eleonora de Lucena (who gave authorization to reproduce here the entire text) asserted the following:
The use of off the record information is rendered banal in the newspaper. Its necessary to redouble caution in the development of controls in editing news obtained this way. Whenever asked, reporters should communicate the source of information to their superiors in the hierarchy. Knowing the identity of the anonymous sources, they should take care to maintain anonymity. As established in Folhas Stylebook (page 46) it is necessary to check and cross-check these data, assuring the reliability of the news and verifying the interests in question.
In theory, these observations imply more control, more rigor by the newspaper to find itself as an organization, not as a collection of individuals in the sense of trying to reduce the chances of publishing false information or being unknowingly manipulated by unreliable sources. If they are effectively applied, that would be good for journalists, good for the newspaper and even better for readers.
