16/12/2007

Words that betray

By Mário Magalhães
ombudsman@uol.com.br

"The New York Times," one of the best newspapers on the planet, is accustomed to perpetuating the euphemism "harsh interrogation techniques" to describe torture of Islamic militants and terrorists by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Within this classification is "waterboarding" (drowning simulation) of prisoners, carried out by CIA employees. It is not about harshness or simulation but rather torture.

Folha reprints stories from the New York newspaper, and translation can't be unfaithful to the original. It should, nevertheless, reflect about the reproduction of items that adulterate facts by calling them by their correct name. It is worse to incorporate the impropriety. On the Saturday before last, the newspaper had its own on the front page, the formulation "harsh interrogation techniques." It associated itself with the folly of others.

It did the same thing by naming a portion of the U.S. troops who fight in Iraq as "private soldiers." In good and old Portuguese, they are "mercenaries" not "private security agents," a variation that also came out recently.

The newspaper knows this. At times, it alters the expressions, calling them "private soldiers," a more sympathetic description than to fling open the status of fighting for money. On another, you only read the euphemism.

By managing vocabulary, events are distorted. It is the right of police to call their arms "bombs for moral effect." But Folha should reject the elegant packaging - there are physical effects.

Examples accumulate. One of them: insisting on the term "partnership" in references to negotiations between MSI (a computer component manufacturer) and the Corinthians soccer club. Words legitimize and de-legitimize. They tell truths and betray them. As the old Brazilian composer said, "words are razor blades." So is journalism.

Folha says Cardoso erred; the mistake was made by the newspaper

Former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso intending to provoke his successor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said he wanted "better-educated Brazilians and not Brazilians lead by people who repress education, starting with themselves." (Cardoso has a Ph.D., while Lula dropped out of school and later earned a GED).

Folha observed in its Nov. 24 edition: "The ex-president committed a mistake in Portuguese" by speaking of "better educated" instead of "more educated." That is what I also thought.

On the following days, the opinions of teachers became well known. Most of them preferred "more" to "better." "Cardoso would have done better had he opted for 'more educated,'" wrote Pasquale Cipro Neto.

To a grammarian, "the two forms coexist in formal language." Nobody pretended that Lula's predecessor erred.

The newsroom did not recognize the mistake. It was strange: the newspaper pointed out the mistake; afterward, it consulted experts, who said Cardoso did not err; it was a mistake, but by Folha, which erred again by not correcting it.

The mayor's virtues

The Ibope public opinion research company released a survey taken Nov. 10 to 14 in São Paulo, with a 3 percentage point margin of error. The leader in the 2008 election for mayor was Geraldo Alckmin of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (the former São Paulo governor who lost to Lula in the 2004 presidential contest).

In a race between Mayor Gilberto Kassab of the Democratic Party and former Mayor Marta Suplicy of the Workers Party, the incumbent would win 47% to 38%.

Folha later published numbers from Datafolha, owned by the same group that owns the newspaper. The institute used a survey from Nov. 26 to 29 (with a 3 percentage point margin of error). In the second round, Alckmin dominates. Marta, however, would beat Kassab 49% to 39%.

Without telling about the method and results, Folha gave clues about the contrast: the Ibope survey was commissioned by the São Paulo Commercial Association, for which Kassab is a vice president; before researching the candidates, they were questioned about the characteristics of the mayor. So, it failed.

Guernica and sensitivity

Folha published a photo on top of the front page Wednesday. I leafed through the newspaper to learn about the person who ran from the police bombardment and found nothing. Not even their names, much less their stories.

They were residents of the Real Parque slum in São Paulo, built on land belonging to a company linked to the state.

The police carried out takeover of the land violently, protesters closed roads, and that caused the year's worst traffic congestion.

On Thursday, I looked for news about a woman who ran away barefoot on the rocks, with a young girl on her lap and a man to her side.

They evoked the wretches of Guernica in the Picasso painting. There was not a single line about their fates and nothing about the topic.

I wrote in my daily critique: "A loss of sensitivity is one of the worse shames that could knock down journalism and journalists."

"New York Times" verifies return of Brazilians first

If there are people who Brazilian journalism should follow it is Brazilians who live overseas.

But it was an American newspaper, "The New York Times," cited in first item, which had news that was unreported here: there is apparently an accentuated movement of Brazilian migrants in the United States who are returning home.

Folha confirmed the "New York Times" revelation in a story Sunday, the same day "O Estado de São Paulo" dealt with the topic.

It is part of journalism to draw the wrong conclusions - I have already choked on many of them. It was much easier for the Brazilian press to pay attention to what happens than a publication which has little interest in the community of Brazilians who live far from home.

-Translation by John Wright