29/07/2007

Tragedy, journalism and power

By MÁRIO MAGALHÃES
ombudsman@uol.com.br

Folha considered the news so important that it chose to put it on the front page the day before yesterday: "The final inspection of the TAM Airbus lasted 15 minutes." The story carried the account of a mechanic who inspected the airplane in Porto Alegre before it took off for São Paulo on July 17. The newspaper recognized that the time spent on the inspection of the aircraft followed protocol.

It instead gave more play to irrelevant information instead of one the most notable facts from the day before: the head of the National Center for the Investigation and Prevention of Accidents said that organization in December predicted a disaster at Congonhas Airport.

"We did not manage to avoid the accident that we predicted," lamented Brig. Jorge Kersul. His declaration did not get the headline on the front page or on the story itself.

Identifying what merits highlighting in the news is a permanent challenge in journalism. Even more so in an aeronautic tragedy such as the one 12 days ago, the worst in this country's history, in which 200 people died.

The selection of events worthy of attention has not been Folha's main difficulty. With similar episodes, the lack of technical knowledge produces errors that are amplified as a result of the anxiety in clarifying the causes of the accident before the data allowed.

The newspaper said, without proof, that the Airbus-A320 accelerated on the middle third of the main runway at Congonhas. It treated possible failures in the airplane's electronics as mechanical errors. There are other examples.

The blunders about aeronautics were reprinted from past coverage, but there is a difference, the unfortunate politicization by government officials and opposition figures.

The former rejected that the runway without grooves to drain rain water contributed to the disaster. The latter differed. The airport is administered by Infraero, a public entity.

There is room in journalism to be rigorous with the facts, exercising vigorously its role of overseeing power - not only the public sector, but also the private sector, as in the case of TAM.

Folha compiled moments of leniency: it reported without critical spirit the package by the National Civil Aviation Agency (Anac) to decrease traffic at Congonhas; it was the same regarding the opportunistic trip by Brazilian politicians to the United States, where the Airbus black boxes were taken; and did not publish photos of the authorities, including President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, smiling and laughing shamelessly at a ceremony eight days after the accident.

In the other side, the newspaper erred in printing a photograph of Denise Abreu smoking a cigar months before the tragedy. It gave the impression that the director of Anac was gloating about the pain of others. The reader is not obliged to look for the dates stamped in tiny print on photos.

Friday's story, "Lula's flights are safer than regular ones" also seemed improper. I don't know any country the size of Brazil in which a leader travels with less or equal safety than regular passengers.

Shameless laughter

At the essence, however, Folha was right. Politicization was imposed by Lula's disappearance, more concerned about not associating his administration with the tragedy and the chaos at airports than comforting families of victims and giving an accounting to the nation. If it had taken 72 hours to speak in the United States or Europe, the criticism would have been louder.

When presidential adviser Marco Aurélio Garcia and an assistant made obscene gestures, they had just heard on the national TV news that TAM admitted the inoperative status of a reverse thruster (equipment that composes the braking system).

They defended their attitude as a reaction to the media which "blamed" the "federal" runway at Congonhas. But it was a source from which they knew the news would please them.

It was not journalism which was abusive telling about the aeronautics award by government to the president of Anac, Milton Zuanazzi, three days after the deaths. It was the government that made a mockery with its sordid insensitivity.

The government showed its ineptitude by firing Defense Minister Waldir Pires and nominating Nelson Jobim (a possible future presidential hopeful) as his replacement - a change anticipated by Folha.

A lesson from the crisis: journalism was weakened in not vigorously investigating the air carriers over the past 10 months since the disaster of the Gol airplane. Instead of pursuing investigation of those who use and maintain airplanes, it preferred to boast about the fabulous earnings by TAM and Gol.

Another lesson: amid unacknowledged interests, the public interest demands an attentive look at the government and carriers simultaneously. The scandalous submission of the state to the lobbies of companies was decisive in establishing this chaos.

Translation by John Wright