Folha Needs to Help Readers Get Through Olympic Marathon Without Losing Its Critical Vision

08/08/2016 - 14h01

The Olympics were declared officially open this Friday (the 5th) in Rio. An opening that will stand out in Olympic history. With boos, as expected. On the covers of newspapers on Saturday (the 6th) there were astounding words and pictures.

Restrained, Folha combined in its headline the majesty of the festivities with the brief demonstration against interim President Michel Temer.

Ever since the Pan-American Games of 2007, when Rio was campaigning to host the Olympics of 2016, Folha has had dedicated reporters closely following the city's candidacy and preparation.

From back then until now, it has published dozens of reports and stories revealing increases in spending for public works, promises not kept and a lack of transparency. Those highlighting the emergence of future record breakers from Olympic Teams have been far fewer.

This is not an accident. Part of the tradition of Folha's sports coverage includes a critical bias, a political vision and an investigative character, and it's fair to say, a restricted interest or even a certain negativity in relation to sports themselves.

The proper preoccupation in avoiding the vainglorious 'woo-hoo-ing' sometimes generates insensitivity to lighter topics or more entertaining narratives.

Last Friday (the 5th), the Front Page, in typical historic character, set the tone for what the reader should expect from Folha's coverage.

"Brazil gives a start to the biggest Olympics while drowning in its worst recession", spoke the headline. A political vision, demanding the proper functioning of the city and the condition of the arenas and sobriety in the coverage of related sports.

The relative pessimism of Folha contrasted with the proclamation of the headline from "O Globo", that declared: "Festivities extol tolerance between peoples". The coverage of the two newspapers with the largest national circulation was at opposite poles.

On the 5th of July, for example, Folha summarized an interview of the Mayor of Rio, Eduado Paes with CNN in the following headline: "Security in Rio is horrible, Paes says, one month before the Games".

While at the same time, the Rio de Janeiro newspaper opted for an optimistic declaration: "Paes affirms that security won't be a problem at the Olympics".

Folha's headline proved to be more appropriate, as various events in July revealed: agents from the National force were intimidated by militias; a homemaker died, after being knifed, while hugging her seven-year-old daughter; a 16-year-old youth was shot in the head.

In the last two months, Folha has put the Olympic theme in its headline eight times, and each time the tone was critical, practically negative.

It informed that the Games wouldn't meet their environmental goals, published that half of Brazilians said that they were against the Games, showed that half of the Olympic Village wasn't ready only ten days before the competition and raised the possibility of athlete sponsors fleeing, among other problems.

It's fundamentally important to balance critical coverage of the event, from the point of view of the functioning of the city as well as related to the condition of the sports arenas, with reporting on competitive scenarios and the history of athletes. On the second point, the newspaper hasn't been standing out.

Beyond the actual competitions themselves are the personalities, the characters, athletes or not, and these are the great attractions of the Games.

An example of good reporting with a creative outlook was the text from Folha that talked about the requirement for lifeguards during the swimming competitions, which inadvertently created a privileged spectator at the competitions, since it is highly unlikely that they would need to save an Olympic swimmer from drowning.

For sports enthusiasts, following the Olympics is nearly nerve-racking. Unlike a World Cup Soccer Tournament, many competitions take place simultaneously and are transmitted live.

Looking to minimize the distress of reader-spectators, in view of this monumental number of attractions, lies the very real agenda of the newspapers.

They need to help in the selection of the amount of time that we will spend on the various sports, in addition to recapitulating the narrative of those that we didn't have time to follow.

We can already affirm that, with leaner editions than those of its competitors, the special columns of the Rio-2016 section are among Folha's standouts. Examples include Geopolitics, signed by Diogo Bercito, and Fashion, by Pedro Diniz, as well as Antonio Prata's Chronicle.

At no other moment has the digital version, on different platforms, been so rich and so necessary for improving the reader's experience.

Folha can't make exceptions to its standard of journalism. The newspaper's DNA was formed for a critical vision, and this is a quality. It needs to evolve in reporting with narrative strength. To manage to take the reader to the edge of the competition swimming pool, a unique virtual place.

The biggest Olympics in history, the first in South American, with a record number of athletes and kinds of sports and an extensive live coverage, is a sports event challenge that Folha has never confronted.

The competitors are tough. The competition is hard. Here in two weeks we will see if the newspaper has reached the podium and which medals it has won.

Translated by LLOYD HARDER

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