Between March 28 and April 12, teachers and staff members in So Paulo municipal schools held the biggest strike since 1987. I received various messages from readers with complaints. Most of them complained about the lack of space given by the newspaper to the complaints. Others found the news to be “biased” against the movement.
I think readers were right about the lack of visibility the strike was given in Folha, mainly on the front page, although you can’t say that the newspaper did not follow the work stoppage. There was coverage since the first day, but they were brief stories, without distinction. The newspaper carried bigger reports about the damage to students and the country (which provoked the criticism that it was “tendentious”) and about the low salaries of teachers, comparing them to those in other states.
The newspaper has difficulties placing a value on municipal public education. Coverage of strikes in general, and not this one specifically, is based on numbers: how many people participated in protests, percentage of raise being sought, percentage offered by the government, number of schools closed and students harmed, and so on. It did not manage to take advantage of the tense moment of the strike to do something in-depth about the crisis.
The newspaper does a good job of covering overall educational policy, but the same can’t be said about municipal education. The newspaper is attentive to the quality of private schools in So Paulo, but the same can’t be said about public education.
Besides daily coverage, the newspaper carried two editorials about the strike and one of its columnists, Gilberto Dimenstein, wrote a column with this reaction: “Is it right for a domestic employee to earn more than a teacher?”
The main problems, in my opinion, are the lack of continuity and depth. The strike ended on April 12, and concern about public education has already faded. I know regular coverage of the topic isn’t easy when we have to pay attention every day to the avalanche of other equally critical problems. But, if we are in agreement that the country must invest in quality public education and if we want to take the big step forward that everybody wants, I don’t see how you can’t give priority to the issue.
Journalistic neglect
Employees of the National Agency for Sanitary Inspections (Anvisa) have been on strike since Feb. 21. The first news I found in Folha was a brief item in the column “Open market” on March 31, 38 days after the movement started.
On April 1, the daily news section published another story, “Anvisa strike affects supply of medicines.” The business section started coverage to follow the damage, in millions of dollars, in the port of Santos: “Strike damage in Santos is US $50 million” (April 4) and “Loss from inspectors’ strike in Santos exceeds $80 million (April 15).
On Sunday, April 16, the newspaper got a scolding from one of its own columnists, Janio de Freitas: “Not only have they committed secrecy violations and parliamentary decorum, now, those invested against the general interest have varied feelings and are little understood. The example is excessive. For journalistic carelessness or other unknown motives, newspapers and TV have ignored a relevant fact: did you know that the inspection section at Sanitary Inspections has been on strike for two months? The carelessness was obvious, and the reaction was immediate. On Tuesday, April 18, there was a story published in the business section, keeping its focus on So Paulo’s port of Santos (“Damage increases from strike in Santos”) and a contrary opinion from the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Congressman Aldo Rebelo, in a story in the daily news section: “Paralysis for 56 days affects inventories of contraceptives.” The few stories published hardly mention the demands of strikers and negotiations with the government.
In the following days the newspaper published two letters and an editorial (“Irresponsible strike”), all of them against the action, and a story. That was all that the columnist’s criticism provoked through Friday. But the main question remains without an answer: how does a strike with such consequences last so long and not get the attention of the government, not even the press?
The congressional investigation and the press
I continue to edit the evaluations that I received about journalistic coverage of the congressional investigation into the Postal Service scandal and these 10 months of political crisis. Has the press fulfilled the role expected of it in a democracy? Today I publish the evaluations by a reader and political scientist.
JOS CARLOS DE MORAES VASCONCELLOS
Reader:
“The analyses of the press’ role in the ethical crisis failed to contemplate an important point: revealing the necessary measures to avoid a repetition of this episode. More than just revealing it, the media lacked a position in defense of these proposals.
“The final report by the congressional investigation of the Postal Service scandal is rich in showing the routes of the ‘valerioduto’ (bribery scandal). It contains legislative proposals and suggestions that seek to combat corruption. This part does not merit the attention that it was given by parts of the media, nor, in reality, by some of the parties who make up the opposition to the government and not even ethical sectors of the parties that support it. It hides the reality: in the front – right there in front – these episodes will be repeated. And then, maybe they will lose the democratic victories and modernization of Brazil!”
EDISON NUNES
rector of Cndido Mendes University:
“In the case of television, the integral demonstration of the televised festival of congressional sorcery effectively allowed members of Congress and the Senate to lose little of their composure or the appropriate liturgy. The TV cameras seem to pay malicious attraction to politicians. The practice of daily politics is transformed into a lamentable vulgar media spectacle. The theatrical moves are directed at their local ‘constituencies’ and not the public cause.
“There is another aspect about which the press can’t show its innocence. ‘Press advisers’ ended up blemishing the image of journalists and the press. Important journalists, with friends and relatives in the newsroom and jobs in Brasilia, increasingly take government jobs and, for this reason, through a near-patronage system of trading favors inside the corporation, ends up exchanging information attributed to ‘high-level sources.’ Press advisers end up functioning like a lever of political interests. There is no sense in saying that the press has nothing to do with this. It sure does. This is about sincerity, prestige and respectability of journalism as a profession, that fought so hard to get professional monopolies, interests and entry barriers to journalistic activity. If you fight so much for the purity of the diploma as a condition to practice, how do you dissociate this purity from the promiscuity that has been established between journalists with the other side?”
FROM READERS
Deserved attention
Concerning commentary I made last Sunday about coverage of the administration of former So Paulo Gov. Geraldo Alckmin in the column “Sudden interest,” I received the following criticism from reader Mrcio Bariani:
“I agree that only now has Folha begun to pay attention to the administration of Geraldo Alckmin, and it was right to finally do it now that he is a candidate for the most important job in the country. But I don’t agree when you said there is a lack of attention in general that extends to all municipal and state administrations. Folha gave plenty of attention to the administration of (former So Paulo Mayor) Marta Suplicy, while Alckmin was ignored. So it is not only about the (left leaning) Workers Party (PT), also has the feeling about other administrations, such as those of (former Mayor and Gov.) Paulo Maluf and (the late Gov.) Mario Covas, which also got the necessary attention. In the case of Alckmin, it was worse because when a negative story came out on rare occasions, the name of Alckmin was never put right in the headline.”
Translated by John Wright
