30/03/2008

Caught totally off-guard

By Mário Magalhães
ombudsman@uol.com.br

On the Tuesday before last, the city of Rio de Janeiro counted more than 1,000 cases of dengue fever a day, reaching 28 deaths for the year. In the state, there were at least 33. While scientists and government officials talked about recognizing the epidemic, thousands of people endured the lines at hospitals.

The next day Folha did not publish even a line about this news. Not a word or even a letter in a footnote. "That's what is called journalistic insensitivity," I commented.

Weeks earlier, the newspaper lined up a sequence of items mentioned on the front page about deaths from yellow fever. The illness has not been transmitted in urban areas since the 1940s. In the countryside in 2008 it has killed fewer people than dengue has killed in the city of Rio.

On Thursday, according to the most important headline in the newspaper: "Dengue in Rio is the mayor's fault, says minister." On Friday, another teaser: "Dengue is epidemic in Rio, admits secretary." On Saturday, one week earlier, the headline said: "Military will equip hospital in Rio to fight dengue."

On the three days, the most prominent information consisted of statements by authorities (one of them the defense minister). The newspaper kept its distance from emergency rooms. There were no eyewitness reports about the pain of those who are ill. Nor did it investigate the amount and quality of public investments to deter mosquitos and combat the illness. I wrote: "(It is) the official story."

Last Monday, with new evidence of cyclothymia, the newspaper did not print a syllable of news about dengue. It didn't even have the hypothesis about an outbreak affecting São Paulo. In the daily critique, I protested.

Starting Tuesday, Folha showed a notable turnaround, despite the deficiencies. Credit: reporters went into the street to tell about cases. Demerit: the biggest newspaper in the country did not have a photograph for its main story, "Rio delays 3 hours to assist dengue cases." Readers got a story about cowardice toward sick people without images.

The same day, it ran statistics that suggested the absence of children in the health care system: in this decade, the record number of dengue cases in Brazil occurred in 2002 during the administration of then-President Fernando Henrique Cardoso; and deaths, in 2007, under incumbent Luis Inácio Lula da Silva.

On Wednesday, a scoop in Folha broke the paradigm which had oriented journalistic coverage, by watching the municipal and federal governments exclusively, but spared the state. "Rio (strictly, the state) cut funds to combat dengue."

At the height of the crisis, Folha seemed to be asleep - caught totally off-guard. Occasionally this happens, a possible consequence of resting on your laurels as market leader. At least it woke up. The day before yesterday, the official count of deaths in Rio hit 54, half of them children.

They forgot what we wrote

(In its entirety, the following is my critique from Wednesday):

The headline at the top of page B6 in Folha on March 14: "Vale gives up attempt to buy mining company Xstrata." There was no teaser on the front page (the daily newspapers "Valor" and "Estado de São Paulo" had it), nor was it in Running Folha, which is like a second front page (the Rio daily "O Globo" put a teaser on page 2).

The headline at the top of page B3 in Folha on March 14: "Vale is closer to buying Xstrata." A passage below: "Announcement could come today."

On that day there was a teaser on the front page about the imminence of the deal.

Today: "According to Agnelli (president of Vale), the acquisition did not go through because the companies could not reach agreement about which of them would control marketing of products - and not because of the value of the purchase."

On March 14: "That barrier (who would control "marketing" of products) had been overcome, with Vale giving into the right to sell part of the production."

Today: "There was fear in the market that the acquisition would result in an increase in the company's level of debt, which could, in the end, compromise the investment grade given by agencies which classify risk."

Twelve days ago, the market opinion was described as the "ability to maintain investment grade"; "Now, it is believed that (Vale) will achieve the same (succeed in the negotiations, with the debt refinanced) in the probable acquisition of Xstrata."

In business, there are steps forward and backward; the scenario could change. The market "view" also changes. Journalism does not always have to get it right; sometimes it is wrong. What Folha should do now, however, is a sincere and transparent look at what changed.

Was the newspaper right on March 14? What was the inside information, then, about the about-face in the conversations?

There is no review of the story; there is no memory of a "scoop."

Folha owes an explanation to its readers.

(Points that need to be clarified: on Thursday, the newspaper contradicted its March 14 "scoop" again, "forgetting it": "Xstrata would be risky for Vale, analysts say." It did not cite various "analysts," only one, from a brokerage. The mistake in coverage about the failed acquisition gave the impression that Folha overly trusted a source with a stake in the matter. I asked, but the newsroom did not want to comment about its performance.)

The truth about Wilson Simonal

Good news: almost eight years after the death of Wilson Simonal, the great singer has begun to be rescued from ostracism. The documentary: "Nobody Knows The Hardship I've Had" was launched at the "It's All True" film festival.

I'll avoid telling how the film narrates the suspicion that Simonal was an informant during the military dictatorship. But it is possible to identify in journalism the willingness to recount the past by omitting the most relevant things, facts.

It is a lack of understanding of human nature: the idea that every talented artist is marked by edifying aspects; or if it is a first-rate artist, he would surely be called talented. The fallacy is tempered by forgetting: if he was an informant, Simonal would not merit posterity. Or now: if he was a swinger, you would not have to delete it.

The truth: in 1974, Simonal was brought before authorities after being denounced by an accountant who was tortured. He took a witness, a detective in the Department of Politics and Social Order from the State of Guanabara (the former administrative name of the city of Rio de Janeiro), to the proceedings. He vouched that the singer was an informant.

Another witness in his defense, a military officer, swore that the defendant collaborated with his unit. The judge ruled: Simonal was a "collaborator with the military and a police informant." In 1976, the Rio Tribunal of Justice reaffirmed the status of "police collaborator."

They were no opponents who invented a partnership with the regime, exposed without reservations by Simonal's friends, who said they were threatened by people linked to "subversive activities."

This week, Folha blundered in reporting about the documentary: it did not mention the judicial evidence he revealed by himself in 2000 (transparency, the writer of the old story is now ombudsman).

At least the newspaper was sober. It refused a journalistic campaign which confused history in profiling Simonal, who was the author of his own acts, as a victim of defamation.

Translation by John Wright