13/01/2008

The mystery of the fourth-hand photo

By Mário Magalhães
ombudsman@uol.com.br

It is the right of readers, which ethics should preserve, to know the true authorship of journalistic work

I discovered this myself in research while seeking a photo of the fire at the Clinics Hospital for the last column in 2007. Because the images were not very good, esthetically or information-wise, I ordered an illustration from the art department.

Last Tuesday, Folha revealed that a group of researchers concluded that it was not Jean-Baptiste Debret (1768-1848) who did a painting that hangs at the São Paulo Art Museum (MASP) attributed to the Frenchman.

	Folha Imagem

The photos at the hospital published by the newspaper on Dec. 26, which were certainly not paintings, exhibited an identical problem: dubious authorship. The one that came out on the front page was credited "Oslaim Brito/Folha Images." It was the same as one used same day by "Jornal da Tarde," published by the Estado group, Folha's main competitor. In "Jornal da Tarde," the author was "Alberto Takaoka/AE (Estado Agency)/Photographer."

The front page of the daily news section ran the image of a patient being carried. It was so very similar to one that came out in "O Estado de São Paulo." There was a new uncertainty about whether this was the work of Brito at Folha or Takaoka at "Estado."

The Association of Photographic and Cinematographic Reporters of São Paulo (Arfoc-SP) decided to investigate. On Jan. 3, its website demanded information from the photographers and added: "Explanations from the newspapers (Folha and "Jornal da Tarde") would also be worthwhile to know how this incredible 'coincidence' ccurred."

Readers alerted me. From the photo editor at "Estado" and "Jornal da Tarde," Juca Varella, I got a copy of his report sent to Artfoc-SP. Tough on photographers, Varella sustained that Takaoka ("ingenuous aspirant") took the pictures credited to Brito ("a greedy old goat").

Both are free-lancers, without full-time contracts at the newspapers. The former agreed to give photos to the latter. To the editor, they were "accomplices." Varella attached a type of digital certification of the most controversial photo: its origin was Takaoka's camera.

I called Oslaim Brito, who recognized that his photos were not on the front page of Folha and the front of the daily news section (one came out in "Agora," published by the Folha Group).

He has contributed to the newspaper since 2004. He told me that he got to the hospital about 11:40 p.m. on Christmas Eve. There, Takaoka offered him all of his photos to sell to Folha under Brito's copyright. On Dec. 25, however, he gave some of them to "Estado"/"Jornal da Tarde" - a duplication.

"We had made an agreement," said Brito, who did not identify the practice as intellectual dishonesty or an offense to the rights of authorship: "Readers in general don't care to know about this. Are they worried about this?... Our biggest concern was not fine points of ethics."

By e-mail, Takaoka said that he arrived at the hospital about 10:30 p.m. The next morning, he accompanied his wife to another hospital. Brito had suggested that he "offer to send the photos to the media." "In counterpoint, he asked me to give up rights to some images that would be sent exclusively" to another publication. "I showed the images that he would use and sent them from my notebook."

Takaoka did not deny allowing his photos to come out with credit to another. It was unacceptable for Brito to exaggerate.

Brito said that the photo editors at Folha learned from him about how the photos were obtained right after publication and were "disappointed." The newspaper only began to investigate the fact vigorously the day before yesterday, 16 days after the disaster.

The managing editor asserted that Folha "was induced into the mistake by the photographer (Brito), will publish a correction (today) and that he will no longer contribute to the newspaper."

The Estado Group, which did not publish false credits, was much more agile in its investigation. It is the right of readers, that ethics should preserve, to know the true author of journalistic work.

"This case is a huge step backwards in the right to moralize the rights of authors," lamented the president of Arfoc-SP, Rubens Chiri. "The big problem today is impunity."

Folha omits invitation and damages ethics

The rule about trips by journalists at Folha which are not paid by the newspaper has been in Folha's stylebook since 1987: "Folha informs with clarity, at the bottom of the story, that the journalist had his expenses paid by the sponsor."

Four moths ago, it updated the "ethics" entry in the stylebook, reaffirming: "In the case of trips, when the invitation is accepted and results in a story being published, the newspaper informs with clarity that the journalist had his expenses paid by the sponsor."

Not even these two decades have assured the application of this clause with transparency, introduced by Folha to Brazilian journalism.

On Sunday and Monday the sports section announced the launch of Ferrari's Formula One car. A reporter in Maranello, Italy, bylined the stories.

With no notice about a "sponsor," I supposed that the newspaper financed the coverage. In my daily critique (free access at www.folha.com.br/ombudsman), I observed: "As it became obvious in the past two editions, Folha did not send a reporter 'by invitation.' In other words, it paid the trip of its staff member."

I criticized the priority: in Italy, there were more important topics to report, the lawsuit about the dispute of telephone companies on Brazilian territory and the judicial action concerning Operation Condor (an Italian judge issued arrest warrants accusing suspects of human rights abuses which harmed Italian citizens, among others, in Latin America in the 1970s).

On Tuesday, another story about Ferrari came out, burying the news about the new McLaren car, which should have been highlighted.

There was silence about the invitation.

The alert that the journalist "traveled at Ferrari's invitation" appeared only on Thursday, with a puff piece produced in Madonna di Campiglio, a ski area where the Ferrari drivers promote the company. An extemporaneous overdose on Ferrari came out Friday and yesterday.

I asked the newsroom about the omission in the initial editions. The sports desk responded that Maranello had not been invited exclusively to the ski area. I insisted: who paid the air travel to Italy? Finally, the truth: Ferrari.

For three days, the newspaper hid the information from readers. And it made a fool of the ombudsman, who believed --and wrote-- that there was no invitation and dedicated the discussion to "priorities."

Now, the managing editor asserts "that it was a mistake to not say that the reporter traveled by invitation on all the stories."

Translation by John Wright