19/10/2008

On front page, total diligence is little

CARLOS EDUARDO LINS DA SILVA
ombudsman@uol.com.br

By allowing the most important space in the product to be filled totally with advertising, the newspaper opened a wound and corroded its prestige

"The front page was the first impression for subscribers as well as readers at newsstands to see the WHOLE page with advertising this Sunday. I asked: where is the journalism?"

That was how a message began from Frederico de Oliveira e Souza to me about the front page of Folha on Oct. 12. He and many others felt disrespected for receiving a promotional front page under the newspaper's nameplate.

By allowing the most important space in the product be filled totally with advertising which, besides everything else, tried to look like news, the newspaper opened a wound and corroded its prestige.

Almost nobody doubts the necessity that the news organization be lucrative to guarantee editorial independence and invest in quality.

Joelma Sampaio Evengelista, a "disappointed subscriber," wrote: "I understand that the newspaper needs advertising to survive, but then to require the reader to read, right in the front, a page about a product, is a total lack of respect. I would like to believe that the diverse departments in Folha are intelligent enough to avoid this type of thing."

And this was not the only slip in this unfortunate newspaper on Sunday. On the "real" front page, there was a "teaser" that was not identified as an ad and sent readers to the business section.

The business section is journalistic material, not advertising. The ad on the front page sent the reader to another ad, but it seemed to direct them to news.

Advertising is a fascinating activity, which values and stimulates intelligence and creativity, and carries out an important role to promote economic activity and disseminate useful ideas for society.

But sometimes creators go too far and try to jump over the Chinese wall that must demarcate advertising and journalism with absolute exactness.

News organizations which abdicate this distinction seriously threaten their credibility, the main quality that guarantees their survival.

When questioned, the newsroom asserts that "the separation between the newsroom and business never was and never should be weakened."

I asked the newsroom if the artifice of the front page ad had already been utilized before, since I don't recall any precedent.

I was informed that it happened once in 2003. They also told me that "the newspaper uses a great deal of parsimony in this resource and the newsroom is always informed, but this decision is a business one."

In my opinion, this was a procedural error. The final word about the invasion of space traditionally devoted to news should belong to the newsroom.

Even though it was identified as "advertising information" above the advertising "headline" (in a typeface family which, in my opinion, was not clearly distinct from the one used for news), the promotional front page last Sunday usurped journalism and offended readers.

It's bad enough when this plague is on the second page, which impedes reading, but at least it is not confused with the news.

The newspaper's masthead is sacred and cannot be lent out to promote any advertising. The price paid later is much bigger than what is received from the advertiser now.

Do what I say, not what I do

Folha believes that the personal lives of candidates is unimportant for electoral decisions. It is inexplicable why so much space and attention were related to the matter of the conjugal status of São Paulo's mayor.

All the topics about public policy, the core of the discussion for electors to decide their votes, disappeared in the newspaper between Monday and Friday.

The marital status of Gilberto Kassab of the Democratic Party generated four teasers on the front page, appeared at the top of the page 11 times, 24 stories, eight columns, six briefs, 19 letters to the editor, and 1,172 centimeters of text in news stories (the equivalent of about four full pages).

Even the correspondent in Beijing was mobilized to write about the topic, while he was being little utilized in the coverage of the economic crisis, in which China's role is vital.

This unreasonable exaggeration is a serious editorial mistake. If the newspaper believes that the intimate life of the mayor is not relevant, why was it revealed so much?

Besides encouraging the degradation of the political environment, the incoherent decision to make the matter such a priority in the campaign for the runoff provoked such a total imbalance in the treatment, up to then relatively fair, that the newspaper had been giving to the two candidates.

Marta Suplicy received in these five days a huge number of negative stories absolutely disproportionate to those of her adversary.

For example, she was the target of eight critical opinion pieces; Kassab, none. Of the 19 letters published, 15 were against Marta. Letters to the Editor said that it received 224 letters against her and 55 in favor. But for the ombudsman, the ratio was the opposite: 36 pro and eight against the former mayor.

Stimulating the wretched chatter helped make what is insinuated in the ads by the left-leaning Workers Party (PT) explicit; the newspaper gave up on encouraging healthy debate. It should never have done the dirty work that other news organizations do with pleasure and competence.

To read

"Crazy People," by Tony Bill, with Dudley Moore and Daryl Hannah, 1990 - an intelligent comedy about an advertising man who pledges to be entirely honest in the ads he creates, and for this reason is put in a hospice, but his work is well appreciated by consumers.

To see

"The Vanishing Newspaper: Saving Journalism in the Information Age," by Philip Meyer, translated by Patrícia de Cia, Contexto Publishing (starting at 32.25 reals, or US $15.25) - perhaps the most important book about the current crisis of print newspapers defends the theory that what could guarantee their survival is credibility, resulting from maintaining quality

"Newspaper Front Pages," by José Ferreira Junior, Senac Publishing, 2003 (starting at 31.50 reals) - an excellent study about the importance of the front page at daily newspapers

What Folha did right...

Health
An initiative to maintain a daily page about health deserves applause, but the new editors still have not found their editorial direction

Alencastro
The arrival of Luiz Felipe Alencastro to the regular team of contributors to the newspaper guarantees quality and intellectual sophistication

...and where it was wrong

Teachers Day
After a recently ended difficult strike by public schoolteachers in São Paulo, Teachers Day was observed with an opinion piece by the education secretary without any counterpoint, clearly an editorial imbalance

IBAS
The newspaper poorly covered the summit of the group, formed by India, Brazil and South Africa, three important "emerging" nations which could have a relevant geopolitical role in the 21st Century

-Translation by John Wright