I never saw anything like what happened all week in the press after the Braslia daily “Correio Braziliense” on Sunday printed three photographs of a nude man identified as journalist Vladimir Herzog. The photographs were taken in the COI-Codi dungeon in So Paulo in 1975 a short time before Herzog was assassinated for belonging to the Brazilian Communist Party.
The revelation in “Correio” triggered a crisis, and there could still be a breakdown between the left-learning Workers Party (PT) administration and the military; it gave a national dimension to the movement that demands the opening of files from the military dictatorship; and it left Brazilian newspapers crazy about the identity of the nude man that appeared in the photographs.
The certainty on Sunday, that the picture was of Herzog, was replaced during the week by questions that culminated on Thursday with information that they were of a Canadian priest, who was also persecuted by the military regime.
Who is the man seated, with his head down and humiliated, who occupied the pages of almost all the newspapers throughout the week?
Folha was certain on Friday, after getting access to the archives “at the president’s disposition” that they were of the Canadian priest. “Correio” maintained the certainty, based on identification done and confirmed by Herzog’s widow, Clarice, and an investigative report, that at least one of the photos was of Herzog. The Rio daily “O Globo” and “O Estado de So Paulo” did not seem so certain and preferred to maintain the two possibilities without assuming them.
Independent of the identity in the photo, the Brazilian press committed various blunders during the week, and it is these that I intend to deal with. The disorientation, evident in Friday’s editions, is the consequence of some mistakes.
Verification
The first problem is in checking the reporting in “Correio Braziliense.” The newspaper had shown the photos to some of Herzog’s old colleagues, but none of them was conclusive. And it was difficult, given the quality of the photos and the time that has passed, 29 years.
The newspaper decided to publish the story “Herzog, humiliation before assassination” after it had photos recognized by the journalist’s widow, Clarice. She received the three low-quality ones by e-mail. On Saturday morning, she recognized one of them, not three.
The doubts that arose, and remain, indicated that it would be most prudent to subject the photos to other identification tests and to compare them with other photos that took into account deliberations that were made about the characteristics of the body and environment. Because only “Correio” had the photos, it had the time to try to obtain more information from inside sources in the government in the military and intelligence areas.
These procedures would have avoided public discussion that certainly discomforted the Herzog family and friends and now, a priest and a religious person who had nothing to do with the story.
Humiliation
The second problem, arising in the doubts about the identification of the photos, was taken by various readers: did newspapers have the right to publish photos of a man, no matter who he was, nude and forsaken? Various readers considered it a “lack of respect” and ethics.
In an interview published by “Correio,” Clarice Herzog said that she felt uncomfortable over the resurgence of the case. I wrote to her asking if she believes that newspapers should not have published the photos.
Her response: “I believe that the newspapers did well by publishing the photos. The news had to be reported, as crazy as it was. The question is finding the right tone. What offended me, besides the photos themselves, was the form in which they were published. Some newspapers, I don’t need to give names, gave a sensational nature to the topic, exposing Vlado doubly with huge photos on the front page with the purpose of really shocking readers, as if the photos themselves were not sufficiently terrible.”
According to the editor-in-chief at “Correio,” Josemar Gimenez, Clarice asked various friends in common for the newspaper to avoid publishing photos that showed Herzog being tortured. They had information that “Correio” had more photos besides those published. “We said that we did not have more photos and if we did, they would not publish them. We would not use more shocking photos, but would show the photograph of Herzog imprisoned and humiliated in the basements of the dictatorship, recognized by Clarice. It is important and unprecedented, which gives grandeur to the information. And I believe it is very important to tell the political history of the country.”
For Suzana Singer, managing editor at Folha, “these are photos with historic value, without any sexual connotation. To hide part of the photo or block out parts would be anti-news.”
I agree with the evaluations of the three. It proves that the photos are of Vladimir Herzog and they were taken a short time before he was killed. They have a historic and documentary value that justifies their publication.
Blackmail
It’s different, in my opinion, from the way the Canadian priest was treated by various newspapers on Friday. Considering that the photographs had been obtained illegally by the SNI (old National Information Service) the note by the government that said that the photos were not Herzog did not reveal the name of the new person: “To violate the private life of those photographed, I am morally and legally prevented from revealing the names of people in the photographs,” said Minister Nilmrio Miranda (Human Rights).
The minister was right. The priest had been the victim of illegal investigations, traps and blackmail to demoralize him for being in the progressive wing of the church. It was enough for the newspaper to report that he had been the target of spying by the SNI.
There was nothing legitimate in the tiny story – without political or historic interest – with defamations against the priest and another religious person, done Friday by Folha based on personal files of the two, assembled to blackmail them. In doing so, Folha exposed them to new discomfort.
The whole case, as we saw, is complicated. We are dealing, at the same time, with questions about the government and with the lives and deaths of people who were affronted. The coverage demands prudence, sensitivity and journalistic rigor from newspapers.
Graphic makeover
“O Estado de So Paulo” is doing a graphic makeover. The stated objective was to make reading it “more pleasurable and with more information about trends in technology, entertainment and the lives of people and companies.” There were changes in graphs and typography in the sections and supplements and the themes that it covers.
The changes are good for the two competing newspapers in So Paulo, which had front pages increasingly similar and undifferentiated.
As I wrote in my internal critique, independent of its faults and obviousness, the makeover is positive for “O Estado” because it shows that for So Paulo, the biggest market for the consumption of information and advertising, the newspaper survived the recent financial crisis that obligated it to make various sacrifices and changes in management.
Folha is reacting with a better-edited newspaper, but with more pages than is habitual, with the use of more colors and trying to increase the value of its supplements. Some readers ask if the newspaper also intends to do a graphic makeover. The response of the newsroom is that it will not be immediate. According to Suzana Singer, “Folha is a newspaper in permanent evolution, has already done various historic makeovers and at the moment, and we are changing supplements and sections that we consider poorly done, such as Balance and Folhateen.”
Translation by John Wright
