This week Folha had two audience favorites, both published Monday: the exclusive interview with Congressman Roberto Jefferson put the administration of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in an unprecedented crisis and reported, in a column by Mnica Bergamo, about the Saturday opening of the new Daslu store in So Paulo. I’ll start with the political scandal.
The main event of the week was the interview the congressman gave to the op/ed editor at Folha, Renata Lo Prete. The newspaper’s headline summarized the bombastic nature of Jefferson’s statements: “PT made payments of 30,000 reals (US $12,000) to members of Congress, Jefferson says; President of PTB, involved in postal scandal, asserts he told Lula and ministers about influence-buying scheme.” Those referred to Lula’s left-learning Workers Party (PT) and the Brazilian Workers Party (PTB).
The accusation, which directly affected the president, deepened the government crisis and obligated the presidential palace to stay on the defensive once again, fraying the PT’s relationship with other allied parties and making investigations of corruption in the government irreversible.
I received many messages protesting against the publication of the interview with the understanding that the congressman has a controversial past and did not show any proof of his accusations. I disagree. The importance of Roberto Jefferson’s job and his direct involvement in the PT administration legitimizes the interview.
The PTB was one of the main parties in Lula’s governing base. The administration and Congress now need to investigate. The newspaper fulfilled its role.
In my opinion, Folha behaved well this week. There was a clear concern, mainly with the headlines and teasers on the front page, to avoid sensationalistic headlines.
The newspaper now has other challenges, besides continuing in an obsessive and balanced way. The main one among them is to do their own journalistic work, in other words, and not depend on the interests and pressures that mark the work of a congressional investigation.
The role of the press is fundamental in the fight against corruption. But, for this reason, it is necessary that newspapers use their best staff and not tire of investigating and checking and rechecking information. As I wrote in another column, it is moments like this, in the interest of competition for exclusive information, that the press can commit big mistakes.
… and the new Daslu
Nothing can compare with the luxury of the new Daslu store, judging by the social columns that describe it as “the best temple of consumption in the country” and “the best amusement park for moneyed Brazilians.” And nothing compares with the coverage that Folha gave to the event over the weekend (June 4 and 5) for guests, but which was well reported in recent months.
A survey done by the news archives showed in this year alone there were 21 items in columns by Mnica Bergamo (arts and entertainment) and “Open Market” (business), five stories (in the daily news and business sections), one entire Sunday column by Mnica Bergamo (April 24) and a teaser on the front page of the newspaper.
This was before the opening. Over the weekend, the opening of the store and on the two days that followed, Folha published three more columns (half page on Saturday, a whole page on Monday and an interview on Tuesday) and two stories in daily news and automobiles.
On Wednesday, the store and its main partners inundated Folha and “O Estado de So Paulo” with ads. I counted nine in Folha.
On Thursday, two critical stories were published: the story “Slum resident near Daslu seeks help” and commentary by columnist Danuza Leo, “Daslu: another world is possible.”
Even though there is understandable journalistic interest in an economic enterprise the size of the new Daslu, with its opulent and ostentatious characteristics, the amount of paper used by Folha was exaggerated.
No other big luxury project, such as the new wing on the Iguatemi Mall (2004), Hotel Fasano (2003) or Higienpolis Ptio Mall (1999) got such coverage.
It is obvious that I received many messages from readers questioning the amount of space given by the newspaper and the lack of critical focus in most of the stories. The biggest amount of criticism was provoked by the story about the opening of the store published in Mnica Bergamo’s column on Monday, June 6.
In the text, “With (So Paulo Gov. Geraldo) Alckmin, walking through Daslu,” the journalist accompanied VIP guests through the floors of the store and jabbed at prices (a leather jacket cost 54,580 reals, or US $22,000) and details which proved the exclusivity of the project. In the end, she described the haste of the first lady, who had to run back to the governor’s palace to change clothes (“put on jeans”) for the next commitment, an event “in which trucks from various neighborhoods brought jackets donated for poor children in the city who face the approaching winter.”
On Wednesday, the newspaper published two letters in “Letters to the Editor” with criticism of the enterprise and the presence of the So Paulo governor at the opening, but praising the story. One of them said the story revealed “why Brazil is the nation with the second most social inequality in the world.” Another considered the column a “complete study on political sociology and anthropology about our elite and their workers.”
Not all of them read it the same way. Professor Tony Queiroga of Rio sent a message to the ombudsman in which he asked: “At such a delicate time in national life, with scandals about diversion and bad use of public money … isn’t it a little exaggerated for the media to give so much attention to ostentatious schizophrenia of the new Daslu store? In a certain way, didn’t it collaborate to give even more of an incentive to this type of event? … Or could it be that Folha’s attitude is to give evidence of this trait so it can be better understood and criticized?”
The newsroom did not want to comment about the space given to the topic in recent months. But journalist Mnica Bergamo spoke about her work: “The objective sought by the column’s team is to offer readers information about the world of political, economic, cultural and social power in this country. It is to paint a portrait, especially, of people in this world, who are called the elite, in all their dimensions: what these people do publicly, what their opinions are, how they live. Daslu is part of the daily lives of many of these people and is even a symbol for a large part of this world.
“In the story about the new installations, we seek to relate in the most objective way possible what Daslu is, what is sold in its stores, what prices they charge, not so the enterprise can be ‘understood and criticized’ as the reader said, but so it can be simply known, leaving each one a judgment according to his own values and convictions.”
On Friday, the newspaper reported that according to Merrill Lynch, the number of Brazil’s millionaires (people with more than $1 million in investments) jumped from 92,000 in 2003 to 98,000 in 2004.
Translated by John Wright
