Folha’s coverage of the attacks by the First Capital Command gang, known as the PCC, had various positive aspects, but did not give the necessary attention to the tragedy of the police who were killed.
Between Monday and Friday I received 153 messages from readers about the coverage Folha gave to the so-called “urban war” – the attacks by the PCC – which began the night of Friday, May 12 and terrorized So Paulo. It was a record number of messages about any single topic during the two years I have held this job.
For me, the most sensitive aspect about Folha’s coverage was the way police were treated. After years and years of criticism (justified, in my opinion) about inefficiency and corruption, my impression is that we have lost any empathy for police to the point that we don’t realize the dimensions of the tragedy that we are facing: 41 public servants (military and municipal police, municipal guard members, prison guards and firefighters) were killed in a cowardly way, most of them on the first three days.
Through Wednesday, when the death toll had already catapulted to 40 security agents, fewer than half had been reported by Folha. On Tuesday, the PCC victims had already disappeared from the pages, by then occupied by the fear that took over So Paulo, and by the police reaction.
On Wednesday, the big surprise came: there, on page A5, were the names of all of the local police who were killed, but not in a story or graphic in the newspaper. It was an advertisement by a bank as a memorial to the police. Advertising beat out journalism. Why didn’t newspapers print a list earlier? Did it not occur to them, independent of recognizing the merits of those who died, that the story would be a historic document?
In any other situation in which the press has been faced with 40 people killed in a few hours, it would be completely mobilized – I’d say even beguiled – into telling about the lives of those people and the circumstances of their deaths. This is how things have been done with big collective tragedies, when journalists reach their public by humanizing the numbers.
Readers found the treatment cold and bureaucratic. Most of the emails that I received were from people who thought that the newspaper treated the police poorly. This perception increased considerably when, starting on Wednesday, the newspaper began to question, and rightly so, the violent reaction by the police.
Because the newspaper did not pay the attention it should have given to the police victims, the space was then devoted to questions and the cases of suspected PCC members killed by police. That caused indignation of this type: “It is sad that the biggest newspaper in the country, during a security crisis, incites the population against the police.”
It is obvious that there was no inciting, but the irregular treatment given to these two moments – police dying and police killing – left readers with the idea that the newspaper was more concerned about the criminals who were killed than about the dead police.
The high point of the reaction against the newspaper occurred on Friday due to the picture on the front page showing a soldier pointing a gun in the direction of a man with a child on his lap. The first impression is that the police was pointing the gun at the child, which makes readers think residents were being threatened. The caption said, however, that the police officer was giving cover to other police who were entering a slum. “What is the intention, to turn the population against the police?” asked one reader. “Is that the right thing to do, considering what we are going through at this time?” asked another indignantly.
The times we are going through are critical, and I believe that the press in So Paulo never had such a challenge of this proportion. Folha’s coverage had, in my opinion, various positive points: it was fast (that does not always happen when events explode on Friday night and the weekend), created high-quality graphics, threw a large number of its reporters into the streets in search of stories, had good photographic coverage (mainly of the panic on Monday), was well informed about negotiations of the government with the PCC, had an interview with So Paulo Gov. Cladio Lembro that continues to have repercussions, and devoted space to experts with interviews and analyses.
It did not, however, have the sensitivity to deal with the police drama and did not produce, through Friday, a critical analysis of what were eight years of security strategy by governors from the centrist Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) which, according to the diagnosis in an editorial, “failed in its duty to weaken the PCC.”
INTERVIEW
Police community representative criticizes reporting of rumors
Antnio Funari Filho, the community liaison for the So Paulo police, believes that coverage of the crisis by the press in general got it right for the most part, but he criticized the reporting of rumors by TV stations.
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OMBUDSMAN – What do you think about coverage by the media in So Paulo?
ANTNIO FUNARI FILHO – It is very useful. The news is helping us find answers to some cases that left doubts about whether or not the police participated in the confrontations. The news about massacres allows us to contact people who can provide us with information. On the other side, there is the concern, which I consider negative, about priority given to information that don’t have much value, such as TV (seen by prisoners). This ends up having a huge popular appeal and reinforces the perspective that prisoners are treated to sponge cake.
OMBUDSMAN – But the news was not true?
FUNARI FILHO – When you consider the possibility of seeing the World Cup, it is not something that merits so much attention. What is noteworthy is the fact that crime is organized over the drug market.
OMBUDSMAN – Do you see a bias against the police?
FUNARI FILHO – No. During those three days there were more than 150 demonstrations of solidarity by the population toward police. I believe this has a lot of influence on the press.
OMBUDSMAN – Was the press sensationalistic?
FUNARI FILHO – Not in general, but I have the impression that this happened at some news organizations, more so with TV.
OMBUDSMAN – Sensationalistic in the sense of being alarmist?
FUNARI FILHO – It is. By repeating some rumors. The press has an obligation (to cover); people fight for freedom of the press. But I believe that it must be very careful about reporting rumors.
Graphic makeover
Folha circulates today with a new graphic makeover. I have followed the changes from a distance, I heard a brief presentation about its objectives, but only today, in browsing through the pages, can I evaluate the news. I have two expectations:
1 – That it be not only a cosmetic change, to symbolize that it is coming out of the crisis that has lasted since 2004, but that it bring changes to indicate that the newspaper is really willing to reinvent itself to face challenges that hang over newspapers. There is a big expectation about the future of the press and hope that the changes not be just more of the same.
2 – That the newspaper be closer to readers and give them more space, whether in “Letters to the Editor” and in the sections of op-ed pieces and opinion columns, or whether through new methods.
Translated by John Wright
