The newspaper on Sunday published one of its most important stories of the year. Reporters Josias de Souza and Andra Michael traveled to Marab, in the Amazonian state of Par, and managed to gather eyewitness accounts from 36 former soldiers who participated in the fight against guerrillas established by the Brazilian Communist Party in the Araguaia region between 1972 and 1974 (during the military dictatorship).
Much has already been written about that period. A book about the topic came out just now, “Operation Araguaia – Secret Archives of the Guerrillas” (Generation Publishing), by researcher Tas Morais and journalist Eumano Silva. The book is written based on secret documents obtained from the military. But, even with the whole bibliography available, there are still shaded zones about that period of history.
The merit of the work by the two journalists from Folha was in having found an impressive number of former soldiers who admit, for the first time, to having witnessed or knowledge about the practice of torture against communist prisoners.
These are unprecedented, highly detailed accounts about what happened on the Xamboi Military Base in Tocantins state and in military installations in Marab. According to the story, “eyewitness accounts from 36 witnesses show that terror tactics were decisive in Araguaia.”
Besides the lack of precedence and the historic value, these accounts should help them search for scraps of information in the attempt to locate relatives of people who disappeared in the guerrilla war.
For these reasons, it was assumed that the accounts about torture would be the headlining story in Sunday’s newspaper. This, however, did not occur. The newspaper preferred to devote its front page to a secondary aspect about the story: “Military in Araguaia wants indemnification.”
It is true that the story also told about this demand. But this is not the main issue, so much that internally, the newspaper highlighted the torture. I will reproduce the headlines on pages A4 and A8: “Former soldiers tell about torture by military against guerrillas” and “Nurse revived tortured prisoners.” On page A6, the newspaper treated the demand for indemnification this way: “GIs, former soldiers want to receive indemnification.”
I did not understand the logic that guided the newspaper to underestimate the unprecedented complaints of torture for the front page Sunday. I sent a request for an explanation but received a response that the newspaper would not comment about it. The topic had huge repercussions on the following days, but the newspaper did not give them the attention they deserved. On Monday, it even published a new story the journalists sent from Par (“Guide for military, rural resident want indemnification”) and repercussions centered on the demand for indemnification, but none of the revelations of torture.
On Tuesday, the topic had already turned into a brief item at the bottom of the page (“NGO criticizes demand for indemnification by former soldiers”) and only on Wednesday were there repercussions about the torture, “Congressmen want to hear from soldiers who saw torture in Araguaia.” On Thursday, as I write this column, the topic was not in the newspaper, except in Letters to the Editor.
It is not the first time nor will it be the last that a newspaper considers a passing item (the demand for indemnification by former soldiers) to be more important than a historic document (the eyewitness accounts that confirmed the torture).
Police reporting
Police reporting has changed. The main newspapers in So Paulo, Rio and Belo Horizonte overcame a sensationalistic phase. But the stories still are predominantly superficial and lacking in context. It is as if we demanded one crime after another, without attention to the phenomena surrounding them.
This was one of the conclusions of the debate that last Monday brought together journalists and researches for the report on the media and violence – How Newspapers Portray Violence and Pubic Safety in Brazil.
The survey, done by the Center for Studies about Safety and Citizenship (Cesec) at Cndido Mendes University in Rio, with nine newspapers in three state capitals in 2004, showed that 640f stories analyzed only described an act of violence or crime. Few contained information and analysis that could help to understand the drama we are living through.
In my opinion, the press should be attentive to three aspects that have been explored little:
1 – Police procedures. Newspapers need to be prepared to follow technical aspects of the research. There is no use in describing a massacre and informing what authorities say and intend to do. It is important to confront what they do with prescribed scientific procedures of the police investigation. Impunity is directly associated with badly done investigations. Reporting needs to demand efficiency from police starting with the first actions.
2 – Security policy. Newspapers should question security policies more assiduously. Today there are worries with regards to following statistics about criminality, suspected of manipulation. This demand should be extended to other security initiatives. Newspapers easily praise the measures that governments promise at times of crisis (creation of task forces, installation of a new battalion, reinforcement of police) and don’t question the efficiency of these announcements improvised to calm public opinion, then afterwards forget to demand results.
3 – Social environment. Newspapers can’t continue covering only the facts and police actions. Stories are written at police stations and ignore the people, victims, communities, families and social environment in which violence and criminality prosper. The stories have quotations and numbers, but they lack faces and histories.
FROM READERS
Echoes of the press conference
I received some messages from readers with comments (negative) about the participation of the press in the first news conference given by President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva, on Friday, April 29. Because I was unable to seek authorization for publication, I will reproduce some passages without identification of the readers:
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“I confess that I did not understand the behavior of journalists. Newspapers spent the whole time complaining, and when they had the chance, the only thing they missed was failing to ask Lula what he would like to say.”
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“I believe that this respected newspaper should have reflected on the fact that President Lula gave a news conference. As a citizen, I felt as if I were watching a conversation of comrades, that journalists got emotional in front of Lula without ever pressuring him.”
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“After the press got dressed up for the ball to participate in the news conference, the same news organizations complained in unison about the monologue. Didn’t anybody know how it would be? Were the rules of the news conference agreed upon previously? If so, why did news organizations, including this newspaper, participate? The stylebook, in the entry about press conferences, says: “Don’t give up control of the news conference and, if possible, take the initiative.” Wouldn’t it be more coherent with the proposition of a free and investigative press not to participate on the stage rigged by Lula’s marketers than to show up “to clap for others to dance?”
Translated by John Wright
