The front page for Folha’s travel section last Thursday had as its main topic the city of Rio das Ostras on the coast of Rio de Janeiro state. The opening story justified the choice this way: “Income derived from exploration in the Campos Basin is invested in infrastructure along the coastline of the town in the Lagos region.”
Folha said that its writer traveled to Rio das Ostras at the invitation of Abih-RJ (the Brazilian Association of Hotels in Rio de Janeiro state) and Rio das Ostras’ Tourism and Economic Development Department.
The same edition carried a special advertising section by oil company Petrobras and by two cities in the same region, Cabo Frio and Rio Bonito: “Basin of Development – Petroleum drives growth of municipalities in the Campos Basin.”
Here are some thoughts:
1 – The travel sections in Brazilian newspapers live by invitations. They are invitations that end up determining the tourist destinations suggested. It is common for newspapers to give their readers similar stories on or about the same day. That was what happened this month, for example, in Folha and “O Estado de So Paulo,” which came out with stories about Easter Island. There was no coincidence in coverage. Only these two newspapers got the same invitations from a travel company, a hotel and an airline.
This was never good for readers or for newspapers and only serves the interests of the travel industry, which this way ends up influencing newspapers’ coverage.
The discussion is not new: news organizations are aware that the policy they adopt for these sections is not the same one applied to other departments, but it ends up being accepted because of money.
Silvio Cioffi, editor of the travel section, points out that all the stories done by invitation of companies bring, at the end of the story, information about who paid for the trip. He added: “Even when taking trips by invitation, we always carry a long and varied list of the transportation and lodging services available.”
The reader obviously loses, as independent and transparent as the newspaper is, when travel by invitation is allowed, there is always the knowledge that this particular tourist area is being recommended for opportunism and not editorial criteria.
Travel sections will gain credibility when they have their own budgets that allow them to free themselves from dependence that causes them to follow the interests of the travel industry. Brazilian journalism still needs to take this step.
2 – Nothing justifies newspapers not using their own resources to send their journalists to nearby places which are relatively inexpensive. If Rio das Orlas is worth a story for Folha readers to the point of meriting a spot on the newspaper’s front page, why not send a reporter from the Rio bureau, which is only 170 kilometers away and let the newspaper itself pay for the trip? It obviously would have more independence to deal with the topic and make a critique.
Speaking of Rio das Ostras, I got the following message from reader Carlos Tautz of Rio: “The story irritated me because it put together praises and praises about Rio das Ostras, a town whose development level is substandard, even compared with other cities in the state of Rio. It is ranked 34th in the state of Rio and 1,188th in Brazil, according to the U.N. Development Program (UNDP) index survey in 2000. It seemed like an arranged story. I went there for the first time in 2004 as a tourist and initially I had the same impression that Folha described: a marvelous place which takes good advantage of Petrobras royalties. But afterwards, I realized that there is a beachfront at Rio das Ostras, something which is part of the developed world, and another, which has the negative impact of real estate speculation caused by the expansion of the oil industry in that part of the state of Rio. The latter is the Rio das Ostras for residents who traditionally live in slums because of the explosion in land prices. This Rio das Ostras is on the poor side of federal Highway 101, which cuts the city in half. I make the criticism because I felt misled at the time and I had the same feeling this morning when I read Folha.”
3 – The publication that same day of the special advertising section raised natural doubts in readers to the point of lack of confidence. I reproduce the explanation I got from Managing Editor Suzana Singer: “It was coincidence that Folha published in the same edition of the travel section a front page story about Rio das Ostras and the Petrobras advertising section about the region. Because there is separation between editorial and advertising, not even the newsroom knew about the existence of the advertisement, and the advertising department did not know what the front page would be about.”
I don’t doubt the explanation, but the coincidence is bad for the newspaper in any form, even more so when it is associated with a section that lives on favors, as is travel coverage.
THE SCANDAL OF THE “ALLOWANCES”
So Paulo’s influence
The project “Appeared in the Newspaper” (www.deunojornal.org.br), by Transparency Brazil, followed the news about public corruption in 63 of the biggest newspapers in Brazil. The survey was recently carried out by the executive director of Transparency Brazil, Claudio Weber Abramo. It revealed some data that merited future reflection that observes the efforts of the press in this political crisis.
1 – The accusations against the administration of President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva have provoked an extraordinary increase in the space newspapers dedicate to cases of corruption. To get an idea, since May 14 (when the postal service scandal began) this space grew 243% altogether in the newspapers monitored. In the case of Folha, the increase was 270%. The survey did not include supporting sidebars, such as graphics and memoirs.
2 – The attention given to the postal service scandal and the “allowance” (bribery) scandal stifled coverage about new cases of corruption. Until the middle of May, newspapers took the initiative, on average with 3.66 new cases of corruption per day; since then, this index fell to 2.88 cases. The phenomenon is perceived mainly by newspapers outside southeastern Brazil.
3 – The coverage had a big influence on the large newspapers, mainly those in So Paulo. Of all the material published about the postal service and the allowance scandals, 23ame out in Folha, “O Estado” and the Rio daily “O Globo.” And, of the stories published outside Brazil attributed to news agencies, 94% were distributed by the Folha and Estado groups.
I asked Abramo for comments about this coverage in newspapers. His suggestions:
“Coverage has not explored avenues that could bring more information to understand the scandal. In particular, the roots of this corruption are not being adequately pursued. For example: the case of the postal service shows clear roots of parceling by the government to political parties in exchange for support by legislators. Then, it is important to know how positions in the federal administration are given out. A graphic showing what posts are held by different parties would give a good idea about the situation and point out where corruption occurred.”
Another poorly told topic is the story of how money in this scandal was used to pay debts in the electoral campaign. This is going by almost unnoticed. For each of those accused, the press would do well to investigate the probability that this fantasy story is true. “Whom was paid with this money?” Absent a response, the reader can reach his own conclusion.”
Translation by John Wright
