The public safety crisis in So Paulo makes it clear that newspapers don’t have good analysts in this area
The campaign to elect a president and So Paulo governor continue to be poorly reported. As I already referred to in other columns, the campaigns up to now have been about trading accusations and slurs.
When things got stirred up last week by the criminal attacks by the First Capital Command (PCC) criminal gang in So Paulo, the biggest electoral bloc and starting point for the two main candidates for president, from the Workers Party (PT) and Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), the lack of government programs and proposals for immediate action were obvious.
The press continued to have difficulties escaping from this low level and insisted on superficial coverage (oftentimes even frivolous), sustained by inconsequential statements and minor facts.
The effort this week to situate the two main candidates for president in the failure of public safety policy in effect now have not been successful, at least not through Friday. It was obvious that the press, which has good analysts – not necessarily academics – in areas such as international, economic and soccer journalism, for example, almost never has reporting teams experienced in strategic areas such as public safety.
And, when the press does not have such staff or the ability to comprehend these issues or have analysts to help out, the habit is to use the classic formula to cover a crisis: many pages so the press gives the impression of “big coverage,” many unimportant facts, and a small space for “experts” captured on the run. It is very little for such a moment in this nation and the expectation that they want to see something besides the electoral imbroglio. How do we question the candidates about their programs if we are not prepared?
There is still time for internal discussion in newsrooms about the direction of coverage, which will have to deal with other equally complex topics, such as health care, job creation, development, the new racial equality laws, foreign policy, social programs and so many others.
To contribute to this discussion, I will reproduce a type of itinerary to overcome the constraints that impede improvement of the electoral debate. It is an elaborate itinerary in a series of op-ed pieces in the newspaper “Valor Econmico” written by political scientist Fernando Luiz Abrucio.
His commentary was not destined originally for the press, but rather identification of the main aspects that are part of the national debate about documented misery that can serve as a direction for journalistic coverage that in fact has relevance.
These are the five constraints to improving the electoral debate identified by Abrucio:
1 – “The institutional problems that weaken the discussion of a national legislative agenda, due to the smaller role given to the parliamentary election (by voters and the politicians themselves) on account of the spurious coincidence between the state and federal elections.”
2 – “The necessity for profound reforms with long-term effects which affect strong interest in the immediate plan – something that can be resolved only with the adoption of measures with gradual application and a ‘snowball’ effect, positively affecting other topics.”
3 – “The low participation of the Brazilian population, especially so-called organized civil society, in the political life of the parties, even during an electoral period preceded by an enormous crisis of representation.”
4 – “The lack of objective indicators and easy access to the whole electorate, capable of measuring the results of public policies reached by different political leaders – in place of this, it installed a debate dominated by class-based false counter-positions and revived the thinking of those who opposed the military junta during that period in our history.”
5 – “The political campaign is not anchored in true opposition between well-defined national projects.”
A herd of gnus
After the World Cup ended in Germany, where the Brazilian team failed and showed poor quality of playing, the exaggeration of coverage in the press becomes even more striking.
I refer to the exaggerations of space (time and paper) and resources (“herd of gnus” was how Reuters described the daily work of hundreds of Brazilian journalists who followed the team, a reference to the dislocations of antelope herds). I also refer to the exaggerations in coverage, with too much flattery on TV and newspapers that never had the critical distance necessary – except when the team was eliminated and it became easy to cast stones.
Revisiting the sports sections and the front pages at the start of the Cup is a good exercise in journalism and might help us think about new models of coverage for the next World Cup in South Africa. It is not possible, for example, that seen from afar now, it did not strike us as disproportionate that Folha gave all its space above the fold on the front page to photos of each of the six players from Argentina who played against the poor team from the former Serbia and Montenegro, in last place in the competition.
An evaluation of journalistic coverage of the Cup is yet to be written. Maybe it lacks a press observatory specialized in sports media. Meanwhile, I share some commentary that I collected in an interview the Carta Maior news agency (www.cartamaior.com.br) had with economist Luiz Gonzaga Belluzzo about the role of the press in the business of soccer:
-”(Carlos Alberto) Parreira (coach of Brazil’s national team) trained one way for a long time, insisting on that way and did what the media asked for … This relationship between the press, business and soccer must have more detached analysis. This is the explanation for many expectations that were created around the team. Many people say that the big problem is that people accept what Nelson Rodrigues said: that the team was the homeland for kickers. But nowadays the kickers don’t have a homeland.”
-”The euphoria during the World Cup has always existed, but in Cup after Cup it is increasingly constructed by the media and business.”
Mistakes in information
Folha recognized and corrected, in the first half of this year, 623 mistakes in information, an average of 3.44 per day, in the “Corrections” section on page A3. In the same period last year, it corrected 576 mistakes (average of 3.18 corrections per day), with 8 0rowth. It might have made more mistakes, but it could also be more willing to recognize its mistakes.
What has not changed is the average length of time it takes for the newspaper to recognize a mistake in information: it took seven days in both six-month periods. That is something that needs to be lowered. The faster the newspaper corrects itself, the more respect and credibility it will get from readers and sources.
Translation by John Wright
