The election has already begun
Newspapers have done a poor job by limiting coverage of the presidential race to chronicling party conventions and daily reports about the campaigns
During the World Cup of soccer and collapse of Varig airlines, the presidential race has made headlines in Folha only when one of the candidates curses or when an opinion poll comes out. Nevertheless, it was during this time they have been concluding the political party conventions that defined the electoral alliances and confirmed the presidential candidates.
The tone of the conventions was low, reflecting the destitute political moment that the country is living through, marked by attacks and offenses traded between the candidates and big shots in President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva’s Workers Party (PT) and the main opposition party, the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB). Drunk, corrupt, incompetent, lazy, lacking character, crook, heartless, gangster, thief, voice of the past, slanderer – the list of insults has no end.
Even the bishops have complained. Not about the press, but the parties. “We don’t see a coherent program; it is just one side talking about the depravity of the other,” said Father Antonio Celso de Queirs, vice president of the Brazilian National Conference of Bishops (CNBB) on Thursday. He should have included the newspapers in his complaints.
The conventions were poor, as they seemed, but the reports in newspapers were not much better. How was the administration of So Paulo’s former governor, Geraldo Alckmin? How was Lula’s presidential administration? What did Alckmin promise and not deliver? What did Lula promise and not deliver? Do Alckmin’s new promises make any sense? Do Lula’s new promises make any sense? The election has other candidates who will try to break from the polarization between the PT and PSDB. Who are they?
We should not be so ingenuous to believe that the conventions have a great importance in developing the campaigns. But they occurred at a time that the newspaper should put its attention on the candidates and their election promises, those made public and those not revealed. A focus on biographies, assessment of their administrations, government programs – emerging at a time when the candidates for the next president of Brazil are being presented – were forgotten. For this reason, coverage is limited to two aspects: a chronicle of the conventions and information about the organization of the campaigns. The chronicle should be summarized as insults and cussing.
As for Folha, it did not ignore the conventions. They were covered, including plenty of space for the presidential candidates and events in So Paulo. The problem was one of focus, limiting to chronicling and organization the campaigns.
I believe that some factors may have contributed to the worsening coverage. First, the discredit of political games, the idea that it is not worth investing resources and energy in conventions that mean little while alliances and strategies for power are not decided in public forums, but at the sidelines and away from the spotlight.
Another factor, in my opinion, is that the newspaper’s energy is aimed toward Germany. The election will begin for the press only after the World Cup is over. But, for the country, is has already begun. While everyone’s attention is aimed toward soccer, the political clock is ticking, the main decisions are being made at this moment, negotiations with interest groups are already taking place. The election coverage team should already be reinforced.
The result is that readers follow events without having adequate perspective on the presidential campaign. And that shows another weak point for Folha at this time, a lack of political analysts.
The newspaper has six columnists analyzing the World Cup, three daily and three others who revisit things, but it did not manage to send even one of its political analysts to follow the conventions and dignify its readers with a more reflective text to put each candidate into context, disclosing alliances and agreements, allowing them to understand what is happening behind the statements and the minor events that will not survive.
It lacked analysis, lacked reflection, and lacked inside information.
The exception
There was an exception in this coverage, the story “Lula and Cardoso distort data comparing their administrations,” by Gustavo Patu, published on Tuesday without meriting even a mention on the front page.
The reporter uses as a base the insults and bravado traded between Lula and his predecessor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso (of the PSDB), to show that neither one is right: “Lula digs up interest rates during Cardoso administration but does not explain current high rates. Cardoso accuses president of allowing overvaluation of real (currency) without mentioning that he used the same policy in his first term.”
The story untangled the statements and many dueling numbers in the confrontations between the PT and PSDB, confronting them and clarifying them, while it demystified the electoral bragging and helped the reader to better understand the presidential campaign. It is an exception that points a path for the newspaper in a campaign that looks like it will be the worst in recent years.
Lack of attention
Engineer Valdir Penteado de Castro on Monday sent a message that complained about the lack of news in Folha about the privatization of the So Paulo Electrical Energy Transmission Company (Cteep) scheduled for Thursday.
He believes the newspaper’s omission was “inadmissable” and justified his worry this way: “The importance, the timing, the way it is being carried out and the future consequences of this action deserve the attention of Folha, especially in light of what already occurred in similar situations.” He referred to the scandals that have surrounded dozens of privatizations in this country.
A survey of Folha’s archives with the help of the data bank supports the reader. Before the privatization, the newspaper published a story in April of last year and another in June of this year – both of them small – and two items in Letters to the Editor. And nothing more.
On the eve of privatization it published a report “Government tries to suspend sale of Cteep” and an opinion piece against the initiative, “Privatization of Cteep is harmful to So Paulo,” by Plnio de Arruda Sampaio, candidate of the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL) for governor of So Paulo. This contrary op-ed piece was published without a counterpoint of a different opinion.
On Thursday, the newspaper published the results of the auction and an opinion piece by Lus Nassif that opened with a question that the newspaper did not answer: “In the end, did So Paulo get a good deal selling Cteep?”
Every week I get complaints from readers who feel frustrated because the newspaper did not follow some topic they consider important. This year alone I received 160 messages, most of them complaining about topics ignored or badly covered in the national, financial and daily news sections.
It is obvious that the newspaper is unable to cover every topic. There is not the space or staff for this; no news organization can manage to do so. Journalism is a selection of topics. But it is also obvious that the example about Cteep shows negligence.
Translation by John Wright
