The newspaper was correct in giving more emphasis to the conspiracy in the purchase of the dossier, but it also needs to verify accusations by the Vedoins against PSDB members
Since Saturday, Sept. 16, the front pages of Folha and the main newspapers have only had one topic: the federal police in Cuiab and So Paulo catching members of the Workers Party (PT)
red-handed arranging a conspiracy on the eve of the elections to buy a dossier against Jos Serra, the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB)s nominee for So Paulo governor.
The facts were not completely clarified by Friday. What is known is that the PT members tried to by the dossier from the Vedoins, a father and son who were implicated in the ambulance purchase kickback scheme at the Health Ministry. The dossier allegedly compromises the former health ministers, Serra, and Barjas Negri.
Because of the conspiracy revealed by the federal police, two PT members were arrested and six others lost their jobs in the government or in the reelection campaign of President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva. The arrests started in the west-central city of Cuiab on Thursday, Sept. 14 and continued on Friday. That same Friday, the weekly news magazine Istoɔ came out with the following cover: The Vedoins accuse Serra When Serra was minister, it was the best time for us.
It was a surprising confession. Up to then, they had guaranteed in the congressional investigation and to federal police that Serra had not participated in the scheme. Last Thursday, in new testimony to the federal police, Luiz Antonio Vedoin once again reversed himself and said Serra was innocent of participation in the scheme.
The facts
During the week I received 75 messages from readers with commentary about the dossier and the crisis it provoked or with criticism of Folhas coverage. There was more criticism than commentary, as is customary.
Most of the messages questioned Folhas choice to give more attention to the conspiracy to buy the dossier than to the contents of the revelations about Serra. Facing the two important facts the conspiracy and the dossier why did the newspaper choose to give more attention to the conspiracy?
In my opinion, the choice by Folha and almost all the press was correct and justified by journalistic criteria. In the first place, there were the ones caught red-handed: an associate of the Vedoins was arrested with documents that supposedly compromise a PSDB candidate, and two PT members detained in a hotel room with the equivalent of 1.7 million reals (about US $785,000), a good part of it in dollars.
The police, who already had information about the revelation gathered by telephone recordings, caught them red-handed and obtained confessions from those arrested showing an operation inside the PT that involved at least one news organization.
The information that those arrested who were tied to the PT tried to buy a dossier was sufficient to obscure, in stories in newspapers on Saturday, the repercussions of the interview with the Vedoins in Isto. The PT was caught red-handed in a dirty trick which was probably criminal, if the origin of the money seized is not shown to be legal, on the eve of the election.
The dossier
Considering that a conspiracy to obtain the dossier is more important than the contents of the dossier itself does not mean that it was in agreement with the weak effort by newspapers in investigating complaints against Serra and Barjas Negri. One story does not annul the other. Newspapers have staff members and sufficient space to do two investigations simultaneously. That does not mean that they merit the same space in the newspaper, but there should be room for both.
The journalistic value of the dossier was questioned, from the start, not only due to the abominable (Lulas adjective) operation but as well for its contents showing the presence of Serra as a minister attending public ceremonies in which members of Congress appeared who afterward would be involved in a kickback scheme involving the purchase of ambulances.
In my opinion, the Vedoins interview with Istoɔ was more important than the dossier itself. Not for the incriminatory quotations that they denied afterward, but for the information that involved an executive tied to the PSDB in Piracicaba in the bloodsuckers scheme.
Folha sent a reporter to investigate information about the Vedoins and published the news starting Saturday: Executive makes donation to PSDB in Piracicaba. The problem is that the newspaper made coverage without continuity, and mainly, without giving it emphasis.
There are many indications that the fraud did not begin in Lulas administration. The investigations into crimes that involve public money dont leave anyone beyond suspicion.
The press
The circumstances of the participation of Istoɔ in the conspiracy with the Vedoins remains unclear. The confession by one of those arrested that the party paid the Vedoins to give an interview to the magazine (Folha headline on Sept. 18) provoked immediate association on the front cover of Isto, but its editor Domingo Alzugaray, denied that he had bought dossiers or interviews.
In any event, it is questionable that the interview was done in the presence of people in the PT who have an interest in the accusations, that the magazine is not worried about hearing the defense by the accused and that the editor in chief who heard the Vedoins had declared that my byline is on it, I dont know what happened, a dubious phrase coming from a professional with a job requiring confidence which feeds suspicions that something really could have happened.
PT members also offered to pass information to the magazine poca. It apparently consisted of the dossier that was seized. According to a note in the magazine, the reporter contacted did not compromise himself with the publication without verifying its veracity first, the correct procedure. He was not sought after this. A reader asked if poca had not been mistaken to reveal the names of the PT leaders who sought them out. I believe it was not mistaken. We are not dealing with sources, as we conceptualize them but with intermediaries in an abominable action. The responsibility of the press, in this case, is to help uncover them.
The surprise
The big surprise for me in this episode was the absence, at least up to now, of journalists involved in the internal operation of PT to forge the dossier.
I will explain. The fabrication of dossiers is nothing new. Since Brazils first (post-dictatorship) elections in the 1980s with the reconstruction of democracy, the electoral campaigns mounted teams for treatment of information, also called SNIs or Abin, a reference to the work of information and counter-information.
Almost always it was abominable work, with the objective of creating dossiers against adversaries which could be passed off to the press or stay in a drawer, as a reserve in case of a reversal in the campaign or blackmail. Among those recruited for these tasks, clearly, were journalists, sought for their experience in investigation. That is a shame. But, at least up to now, none of them have shown up.
Translation by John Wright
